BANCROFT    LIBRAE* 


THE  SCHOLAR,  THE  JURIST, 


THE  ARTIST,  THE  PHILANTHROPIST 


AN  ADDRESS 


BEFORE    THE 


PHI  BETA  KAPPA  SOCIETY  OF  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY, 


AT  THEIR   ANNIVERSARY,  AUGUST  27,  1846. 


BY  CHARLES    SUMNER. 


"  Then  I  would  say  to  the  young  disciple  of  Truth  and  Beauty,  who  would  know  how  to 
satisfy  the  noble  impulse  of  his  heart,  through  every  opposition  of  the  century,  — I  would  say, 
Give  the  world  beneath  your  influence  a  direction  towards  the  good,  and  the  tranquil  rhythm 
of  time  will  bring  its  development.3'—  SCHILLER. 


BOSTON: 

WILLIAM  D.  TICKNOR  AND  COMPANY. 
1846. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1846,  by 

WM.  D.    TlCKNOR   AND    COMPANY, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF  AND  COMPANY, 

PRINTERS  TO   THE   UNIVERSITY. 


ADDRESS. 


TO-DAY  is  the  festival  of  our  fraternity,  sacred  to 
learning,  to  friendship,  and  to  truth.  From  many 
places,  remote  and  near,  we  have  come  together  be 
neath  the  benediction  of  Alma  Mater.  We  have  walked 
in  the  grateful  shelter  of  her  rich  embowering  trees. 
Friend  has  met  friend,  classmate  has  pressed  the  hand 
of  classmate,  while  the  ruddy  memories  of  youth  and 
early  study  have  risen  upon  the  soul.  And  now  we 
have  come  up  to  this  church,  a  company  of  brothers, 
in  the  long,  well  ordered  procession,  commencing  with 
the  silver  locks  of  reverend  age,  and  closing  with  the 
fresh  forms  that  glow  with  the  golden  blood  of  youth. 

With  hearts  of  gratitude,  we  greet  among  our  num 
ber  those  whose  lives  are  crowned  by  desert ;  espe 
cially  him  who,  returning  from  conspicuous  cares  in 
a  foreign  land,  now  graces  our  chief  seat  of  learning  ;  * 
and  not  less  him  who,  closing  an  eminent  career  of 
probity  and  honor  in  the  high  service  of  the  Uni 
versity,  now  voluntarily  withdraws  to  a  well  earned 

*  Hon.  Edward  Everett,  President  of  Harvard  University. 


repose.*  We  salute  at  once  the  successor  and  the 
predecessor,  —  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun.  And 
ingenuous  youth,  in  whose  bosom  are  enfolded  the 
germs  of  untold  excellence,  whose  ardent  soul  sees 
visions  which  are  closed  to  others  by  the  hand  of  Time, 
commands  our  reverence,  not  less  than  age,  rich  in 
experience  and  honor.  What  we  have  we  know  and 
can  measure  ;  that  which  we  have  not  is  unknown 
and  immeasurable,  and  there  is  in  the  uncertain  prom 
ises  of  youth  a  brightness  of  hope  transcending  the 
realities  of  life.  Welcome,  then,  not  less  to  the  young 
than  the  old ;  and  may  this  our  holiday  brighten  with 
harmony  and  joy ! 

As  the  eye  wanders  around  our  circle,  it  seeks  in 
vain  for  a  beloved  form  who,  for  many  years,  occupied 
the  seat  which  you  now  fill,  Mr.  President.  I  might 
have  looked  to  behold  him  on  this  occasion.  But  death, 
since  we  last  met  together,  has  borne  him  away.  The 
love  of  friends,  the  devotion  of  pupils,  the  prayers  of 
the  nation,  the  concern  of  the  world,  could  not  shield 
him  from  the  inexorable  shaft.  When  I  apply  to  him 
those  admirable  words  which  the  genius  and  friend 
ship  of  Clarendon  bestowed  upon  Falkland,  that  "  he 
was  a  person  of  such  prodigious  parts  of  learning  and 
knowledge,  of  such  inimitable  sweetness  and  delight 
in  conversation,  of  so  flowing  and  obliging  a  humanity 
and  goodness  to  mankind,  and  of  that  primitive  sim 
plicity  and  integrity  of  life,"f  I  need  not  add  the 
name  of  STORY.  To  dwell  on  his  character,  and  all 

*  Hon.  Josiah  Quincy,  late  President  of  Harvard  University, 
f  History  of  the  Rebellion,  Book  VII. 


that  he  has  done,  were  a  worthy  theme.  But  his  is 
not  the  only  dear  countenance  which  returns  no  an 
swering  smile. 

This  year  our  Society,  according  to  custom,  has 
published  the  catalogue  of  its  members,  marking  by  a 
star  the  insatiate  archery  of  death  in  the  brief  span  of 
four  years.  In  no  period,  equally  short,  of  its  history, 
have  such  shining  marks  been  found. 

"  Now  kindred  merit  fills  the  sable  bier, 
Now  lacerated  friendship  claims  a  tear ; 
Year  chases  year,  decay  pursues  decay  ; 
Still  drops  some  joy  from  withering  life  away."  * 

Scholarship,  Jurisprudence,  Art,  Humanity,  each  has 
been  called  to  mourn  its  chosen  champion.  Pickering, 
the  Scholar,  Story,  the  Jurist,  Allston,  the  Artist, 
Channing,  the  Philanthropist,  have  been  removed. 
When  our  last  catalogue  was  published,  they  were  all 
living,  each  in  his  field  of  usefulness.  Our  catalogue 
of  this  year  gathers  them  together  writh  the  dead. 
Sweet  and  exalted  companionship!  They  were  joined 
in  their  early  lives,  in  their  fame,  in  their  death.  They 
were  brethren  of  our  fraternity,  sons  of  Alma  Mater. 
Story  and  Channing  were  classmates.  Pickering  pre 
ceded  them  by  two  years  only ;  Allston  followed  them 
by  two  years.  As  we  cast  our  eyes  upon  the  closing 
lustre  of  the  last  century,  we  discern  this  brilliant 
group,  whose  mortal  light  is  now  obscured.  After  the 
toils  of  his  long  life,  Pickering  sleeps  serenely,  in  the 
place  of  his  birth,  near  the  honored  dust  of  his  father. 
Channing,  Story,  and  Allston  have  been  laid  to  rest  in 

*  Johnson's  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes. 


Cambridge,  where  they  first  tasted  together  of  the  tree 
of  life ;  Channing  and  Story  in  the  sweet,  grassy  bed 
of  Mount  Auburn,  in  the  shadow  of  beautiful  trees, 
vocal  with  choristers  of  love  ;  Allston  in  the  adjoining 
church-yard,  within  sound  of  his  voice  who  now  ad 
dresses  you. 

It  was  the  custom  in  ancient  Rome,  on  solemn 
occasions,  to  bring  forward  the  images  of  departed 
friends,  arrayed  in  their  robes  of  office,  and  carefully 
adorned,  while  some  one  recounted  what  they  had 
done,  in  the  hope  of  refreshing  the  memory  of  their 
deeds,  and  of  inspiring  the  living  with  new  impulses  to 
virtue.  "For  who,"  says  the  ancient  historian,  "can 
behold  without  emotion  the  forms  of  so  many  illus 
trious  men,  thus  living  as  it  were  and  breathing  to 
gether  in  his  presence  ?  or  what  spectacle  can  be  con 
ceived  more  great  and  striking  ?  "  *  So,  let  me  ex 
hibit  to-day  the  images  of  our  departed  brothers,  not 
in  robes  of  ceremony,  or  costume  of  office,  but  in  the 
native  colors  of  their  truthful  and  simple  characters. 
And  while  we  dwell  with  the  warmth  of  personal  at 
tachment  upon  their  virtues,  let  us  seek  to  comprehend 
and  reverence  the  great  interests  which  they  lived  to 
promote.  Pickering,  Story,  Allston,  Channing!  Their 
names  alone,  without  addition,  awaken  a  response, 
which,  like  the  far-famed  echo  of  the  woods  of  Dodona, 
will  prolong  itself  through  the  livelong  day.  But 
great  as  they  are,  we  feel  their  insignificance  by  the 
side  of  the  causes  to  which  their  days  were  conse- 

*  Hampton's  Polybius,  Book  VI. 


crated,  —  Knowledge,  Justice,  Beauty,  Love,  the  com 
prehensive  attributes  of  God.  Illustrious  on  earth, 
they  were  the  lowly  and  mortal  ministers  of  lofty  and 
immortal  truth.  It  is,  then,  THE  SCHOLAR,  THE  JU 
RIST,  THE  ARTIST,  THE  PHILANTHROPIST,  whom  we 
celebrate  to-day,  and  whose  pursuits  will  be  the 
theme  of  my  discourse. 

In  the  presence  of  these  characters,  we  shall  natu 
rally  be  lifted  far  away  from  the  busy  hum  of  selfish 
interests,  from  the  weary  pulsations  of  the  great  heart 
of  Labor,  from  the  madding  strifes  of  the  crowd,  into 
serener  air.  It  may  be  pleasant,  on  this  our  holiday, 
to  range  among  the  fair  mountain-tops,  to  breathe 
their  bracing  atmosphere,  to  discern  the  world  in 
diminished  scenery  below,  —  its  tall  spires  become  as 
pigmies,  —  and  again  to  descend  to  the  valleys  with 
fresh  ideas  of  the  heights  we  should  strive  to  reach. 

In  offering  these  tributes,  I  shall  leave  to  other  occa 
sions  the  more  appropriate  labor  of  biographical  details. 
I  shall  reverse  the  order  in  which  our  brothers  died, 
taking  the  last  first. 

JOHN  PICKERING,  THE  SCHOLAR,  died  in  the  month 
of  May,  1846,  aged  sixty-nine,  within  a  short  period 
of  that  extreme  goal  which  is  the  allotted  limit  of  human 
life.  By  scholar,  I  mean  a  cultivator  of  liberal  studies, 
a  student  of  knowledge  in  its  largest  sense, — not  mere 
ly  classical,  not  excluding  what  is  exclusively  called 
science  in  our  days,  but  which  was  unknown  when  the 
title  of  scholar  was  first  established  ;  for  though  Cicero 
dealt  a  sarcasm  at  Archimedes,  he  spoke  with  higher 


truth  when  he  beautifully  recognized  the  common  bond 
between  all  departments  of  knowledge.  The  brother 
whom  we  now  mourn  was  a  scholar,  a  student,  as  long 
as  he  lived.  He  did  not  take  his  place  merely  among 
what  are  called,  by  generous  courtesy,  Educated  Mi'H, 
with  most  of  whom  education  is  past  and  gone,  men 
who  have  studied ;  he  studied  always.  Life  was  to 
him  an  unbroken  lesson,  pleasant  with  the  sweets  of 
knowledge  and  the  consciousness  of  improvement. 

The  world  knows  and  reveres  his  learning;  they 
only,  whose  privilege  it  was  to  partake  somewhat  of 
his  daily  life,  fully  know  the  modesty  of  his  character. 
His  knowledge  was  such  that  he  seemed  to  be  igno 
rant  of  nothing,  while  in  the  perfection  of  his  humility 
he  might  seem  to  know  nothing.  By  learning  con 
spicuous  before  the  world,  his  native  diffidence  with 
drew  him  from  its  personal  observation.  Surely  learning 
so  great,  which  claimed  so  little,  will  not  be  forgotten. 
The  modesty  which  detained  him  in  retirement  during 
life  shall  introduce  him  now  that  he  is  dead.  Strange 
reward  !  The  merit  which  shrank  from  the  living  gaze 
shall  now  be  observed  of  all  men.  The  soft  voice  of 
humility  is  returned  in  pealing  echoes  from  the  tomb. 

In  speaking  of  Pickering,  I  place  in  the  front  his 
modesty  and  his  learning,  the  two  attributes  by  which 
he  will  always  be  remembered.  I  might  enlarge  on 
his  sweetness  of  temper,  his  simplicity  of  life,  his  kind 
ness  to  the  young,  his  sympathy  with  studies  of  all 
kinds,  his  sensibility  to  beauty,  his  conscientious  char 
acter,  his  passionless  mind.  Could  he  speak  to  us 
with  regard  to  himself,  he  might  employ  the  words  of 


self- painting  which  dropped  from  the  kindly  pen  of  his 
great  predecessor  in  the  cultivation  of  Grecian  litera 
ture,  the  leader  in  its  revival  in  Europe,  as  Pickering 
was  in  some  sort  in  America,  the  urbane  and  learned 
Erasmus.  "  For  my  own  part,"  says  the  early  scholar 
to  his  English  friend,  John  Colet,  "  I  best  know  my 
own  failings,  and  therefore  shall  presume  to  give  a  char 
acter  of  myself.  You  have  in  me  a  man  of  little  or  no 
fortune,  a  stranger  to  ambition,  of  a  strong  propensity 
to  loving-kindness  and  friendship,  without  any  boast  of 
learning,  but  a  great  admirer  of  it ;  one  who  has  a 
profound  veneration  for  any  excellence  in  others,  how 
ever  he  may  feel  the  want  of  it  in  himself;  who  can 
readily  yield  to  others  in  learning,  but  to  none  in  in 
tegrity  ;  a  man  sincere,  open,  and  free ;  a  hater  of 
falsehood  and  dissimulation ;  of  a  mind  lowly  and  up 
right;  who  boasts  of  nothing  but  an  honest  heart."* 
I  have  called  him  the  scholar ;  for  it  is  in  this  char 
acter  that  he  leaves  so  choice  an  example  of  excel 
lence.  But  the  triumphs  of  his  life  are  enhanced  by 
the  variety  of  his  labors,  and  especially  by  his  long 
career  at  the  bar.  He  was  a  lawyer,  whose  days  were 
worn  in  the  faithful  and  uninterrupted  practice  of  his 
profession,  busy  with  clients,  careful  of  their  concerns, 
both  in  court  and  out  of  court.  Each  day  witnessed 
his  untiring  exertions  in  scenes  of  labor  having  little 
that  was  attractive  to  his  gentle  and  studious  nature. 
He  was  formed  to  be  a  seeker  of  truth  rather  than  a 
defender  of  wrong,  and  he  found  less  delight  in  the 
hoarse  strifes  of  the  bar  than  in  the  peaceful  conversa- 

*  Erasmi  Epist.,  Lib.  V.,  Ep.  4. 


10 


tion  of  books.  To  him  litigation  was  a  sorry  feast, 
and  a  well  rilled  docket  of  cases  not  unlike  the  cu 
rious  and  now  untasted  dish  of  "  thistles  "  which 
sometimes  formed  a  part  of  a  Roman  banquet.  He 
knew  that  the  duties  of  the  profession  were  important 
and  useful ;  but  felt  that  even  their  successful  perform 
ance,  when  unattended  by  a  generous  juridical  culture, 
gave  a  slender  title  to  regard,  while  they  were  less 
pleasant  and  ennobling  far  than  the  disinterested  pur 
suit  of  learning.  He  would  have  said,  at  least  as  re 
gards  his  own  profession,  with  the  Lord  Archon  of 
the  Oceana,  "  I  will  stand  no  more  to  the  judgment  of 
lawyers  and  divines  than  to  that  of  so  many  other 
tradesmen."  * 

*  Harrington's  Oceana,  134.  Milton,  in  his  tract  upon  Education, 
says,  —  "  Some  are  allured  to  the  trade  of  the  law,  grounding  their  pur 
poses  not  on  the  prudent  and  heavenly  contemplation  of  justice  and 
eqtfity,  which  was  never  taught  them,  but  on  the  promising  and  pleasing 
thoughts  of  litigious  terms,  fat  contentions,  and  flowing  fees."  It  is  to 
be  hoped  that  the  words  of  Socrates,  sharply  sketching  the  moral  dan 
gers  of  professional  and  public  life,  are  less  applicable  to  our  country  than 
to  ancient  Athens.  "  It  seems  to  me,"  says  the  wisest  of  Greeks,  "  that 
men  trained  from  their  youth  in  the  tribunals  and  in  affairs,  compared 
with  those  nurtured  by  philosophy,  are  like  slaves  by  the  side  of  free 
men Their  disputes  are  never  without  some  consequence  ; 

there  always  enters  into  them  some  personal  interest,  often  even  that  of 
life  ;  all  this  renders  them  sharp  and  ardent,  skilful  to  win  their  master 
by  flattering  words,  and  to  please  him  by  their  actions ;  but  they  have 
neither  rectitude  nor  moral  grandeur  of  soul ;  for  the  servitude  in  which 
they  engage  from  their  youth  prevents  them  from  developing  themselves, 
takes  from  them  all  elevation  and  nobleness,  in  constraining  them  to  act 
by  oblique  ways  ;  and,  as  it  exposes  their  souls,  yet  tender,  to  great  dan 
gers  and  apprehensions  which  they  have  not  sufficient  hardihood  to  affront 
in  the  name  of  justice  and  truth,  they  have  early  recourse  to  falsehood 
and  to  the  art  of  injuring  one  another  ;  they  bend  and  twist  in  a  thousand 
ways,  and  pass  from  youth  to  ripe  age  with  a  soul  thoroughly  corrupted, 


11 


It  was  the  law  as  a  trade,  that  he  pursued  reluc 
tantly  ;  while  he  had  especial  happiness  in  the  science 
of  jurisprudence,  to  which  he  devoted  many  hours,  res 
cued  from  other  cares.  By  his  example,  and  the  various 
contributions  of  his  pen,  he  elevated  and  adorned  the 
study,  and  invested  it  with  the  charm  of  liberal  pur 
suits.  By  marvellous  assiduity,  he  was  able  to  lead 
two  lives,  one  producing  the  fruits  of  earth,  the  other 
those  of  immortality.  In  him  was  the  union,  rare  as 
it  is  grateful,  of  the  lawyer  and  the  scholar.  He 
has  taught  us  how  much  may  be  done,  amidst  the  toils 
of  professional  life,  for  the  high  concerns  of  jurispru 
dence  and  learning ;  while  the  clear  and  enduring  lustre 
of  his  name,  dimming  the  glowworm  scintillations  of 
ordinary  forensic  success,  reminds  us,  as  by  contrast,  of 
the  feeble  and  fugitive  fame  which  is  the  lot  of  the 
mere  lawyer,  although  clients  may  beat  at  his  gates 
from  the  earliest  cock-crowing  at  the  dawn. 

It  would  be  impossible,  on  this  occasion,  to  describe 
his  multitudinous  labors  of  scholarship.  They  were 
of  a  character  that  is  but  slightly  appreciated  by  the 
world  at  large,  although  important  contributions  to  the 
general  sum  of  knowledge.  They  were  chiefly  directed 
to  two  subjects,  —  classical  studies  and  general  philol 
ogy,  if  these  two  may  be  regarded  separately. 

His  early  life  was  marked  by  a  special  interest  in 
classical  studies.  At  a  time  when  accurate  and  exten 
sive  scholarship  in  our  country  was  rare,  he  aspired  to 

while  they  imagine  that  they  have  acquired  much  cleverness  and  wis* 
dom."  Plato,  Thesetetus,  cap.  xxiii.  Pickering  was  nurtured  by  phi 
losophy,  and  his  soul  had  the  purity  of  freedom. 


12 

possess  it.  By  daily  and  nightly  studies  he  mastered 
the  great  exemplars  of  antiquity,  and  found  delight  in 
their  beauties.  His  example,  for  many  years,  exerted 
a  potent  influence  in  commending  them.  But  he 
sought,  by  peculiar  exertions,  to  promote  their  study 
in  the  learned  seminaries  of  our  country.  With  un 
answerable  force,  he  urged  the  duty  of  establishing  a 
standard  of  education  among  us,  in  every  substantial 
respect  commensurate  with  that  in  Europe.  It  was 
his  desire  to  see  the  American  youth  receiving  on  their 
native  soil,  under  the  precious  influence  of  free  insti 
tutions,  a  course  of  instruction  that  should  render  for 
eign  aid  superfluous.  He  had  a  just  pride  of  country, 
and  wished  to  behold  its  character  respected  abroad  in 
the  persons  of  accomplished  representatives,  well  know 
ing  that  every  American  scholar,  wherever  he  wanders 
in  foreign  lands,  is  a  living  recommendation  of  the  in 
stitutions  under  which  he  has  been  reared. 

He  knew  that  scholarship  of  all  kinds  would  gild 
the  life  of  its  possessor ;  that  it  would  enlarge  the 
resources  of  the  advocate ;  that  it  would  enrich  the 
voice  of  the  pulpit ;  and  strengthen  the  learning  of 
medicine.  He  knew  that  it  would  afford  a  pleasant 
companionship  in  hours  of  relaxation  from  labor,  in 
periods  of  sadness,  and  in  the  evening  of  life  ;  that, 
when  once  embraced,  it  was  more  constant  than 
friendship,  —  attending  its  votary,  as  an  invisible  spirit, 
in  the  toils  of  the  day,  in  the  watches  of  the  night, 
in  the  changes  of  travel,  in  the  alternations  of  fortune 
and  health. 

In  commending  classical  studies,  it  would  be  diffi- 


13 


cult  to  say  that  he  attached  to  them  any  undue  im 
portance.  He  showed,  by  his  own  example,  that  he 
bore  them  no  exclusive  love.  He  rightly  regarded 
them  as  an  essential  part  of  liberal  education,  opening 
the  way  to  other  realms  of  knowledge,  while  they 
matured  the  taste  and  invigorated  the  understanding. 
In  this  view  all  will  probably  concur.  It  might  be 
questioned,  however,  whether,  in  our  hurried  life,  it 
were  possible,  with  proper  attention  to  other  studies, 
to  introduce  into  ordinary  education  the  exquisite 
skill  which  is  the  pride  of  English  scholarship,  re 
minding  us  of  the  minuteness  of  finish  in  Chinese 
art ;  or  the  ponderous  and  elaborate  learning  which 
is  the  wonder  of  Germany,  reminding  us  of  the  dis 
proportion  and  unnatural  perspective  of  a  Chinese 
picture.  But  much  may  be  done  by  the  establishment 
of  those  habits  of  accuracy,  the  result  of  early  and 
careful  instruction,  which  will  aid  in  the  appreciation 
of  the  severe  beauty  of  antiquity,  while  they  become 
an  invaluable  standard  and  measure  of  our  attain 
ments  in  other  things. 

The  classics  possess  a  peculiar  charm,  from  the  cir 
cumstance,  that  they  have  been  the  models,  I  might 
almost  say  the  masters,  of  composition  and  thought  in 
all  ages.  In  the  contemplation  of  these  august 
teachers  of  mankind,  we  are  filled  with  conflicting 
emotions.  They  are  the  early  voice  of  the  world, 
better  remembered  and  more  cherished  still  than  all  the 
intermediate  words  that  have  been  uttered,  —  as  the 
lessons  of  childhood  still  haunt  us,  when  the  impres 
sions  of  later  years  have  been  effaced  from  the  mind. 


14 


But  they  show  with  most  unwelcome  frequency  the 
tokens  of  the  world's  childhood,  before  passion  had 
yielded  to  the  sway  of  reason  and  the  affections. 
They  want  the  highest  charm  of  purity,  of  righteous 
ness,  of  elevated  sentiments,  of  love  to  God  and  man. 
It  is  not  in  the  frigid  philosophy  of  the  Porch  and  the 
Academy  that  we  are  to  seek  these  ;  not  in  the  mar 
vellous  teachings  of  Socrates,  as  they  come  mended 
by  the  mellifluous  words  of  Plato;  not  in  the  re 
sounding  line  of  Homer,  on  whose  inspiring  tale  of 
blood  Alexander  pillowed  his  head  ;  not  in  the  ani 
mated  strain  of  Pindar,  where  virtue  is  pictured  in 
the  successful  strife  of  an  athlete  at  the  Isthmian 
games ;  not  in  the  torrent  of  Demosthenes,  dark  with 
self-love  and  the  spirit  of  vengeance ;  not  in  the  fitful 
philosophy  and  intemperate  eloquence  of  Tully ;  not 
in  the  genial  libertinism  of  Horace,  or  the  stately 
atheism  of  Lucretius.  No ;  these  must  not  be  our 
masters ;  in  none  of  these  are  we  to  seek  the  way  of 
life.  For  eighteen  hundred  years,  the  spirit  of  these 
writers  has  been  engaged  in  weaponless  contest  with 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  those  two  sublime 
commandments  on  which  hang  all  the  law  and  the 
prophets.*  The  strife  is  still  pending.  Heathenism, 

*  Terence,  taught,  perhaps,  by  his  own  bitter  experience  as  a  slave, 
has  given  expression  to  truth  almost  Christian,  when  he  says, 
"  Homo  sum;  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto." 

Heauton.  A.  1,  Sc.  1 
and  in  the  Andria, 

"  Facile  omnes  perferre  et  pati 
Cum  quibus  erat  cunque  una  ;  iis  sese  dedere, 
Eorum  obsequi  studiis,  advorsus  nemini, 
Nunquam  procponens  se  aliis." 

A.I,  So.  1. 


15 


which  has  possessed  itself  of  such  Siren  forms,  is  not 
yet  exorcised.  It  still  tempts  the  young,  controls  the 
affairs  of  active  life,  and  haunts  the  meditations  of 
age. 

Our  own  productions,  though  they  may  yield  to  those 
of  the  ancients  in  the  arrangement  of  ideas,  in  method, 
in  beauty  of  form,  and  in  freshness  of  illustration, 
are  immeasurably  superior  in  the  truth,  delicacy,  and 
elevation  of  their  sentiments,  —  above  all,  in  the  be 
nign  recognition  of  that  great  Christian  revelation, 
the  brotherhood  of  man.  How  vain  are  eloquence  and 
poetry,  compared  with  this  heaven-descended  truth ! 
Put  in  one  scale  that  simple  utterance,  and  in  the 
other  the  lore  of  Antiquity,  with  its  accumulating 
glosses  and  commentaries,  and  the  last  will  be  light 
and  trivial  in  the  balance.  Greek  poetry  has  been 
likened  to  the  song  of  the  nightingale  as  she  sits  in  the 
rich,  symmetrical  crown  of  the  palm-tree,  trilling  her 
thick-warbled  notes  ;  but  even  this  is  less  sweet  and 
tender  than  the  music  of  the  human  heart. 

These  things  cannot  be  forgotten  by  the  Christian 
scholar.  Let  him  draw  from  the  Past  all  that  it  has 
to  contribute  to  the  great  end  of  life,  human  progress 
and  happiness ;  progress,  without  which  happiness  is 
vain.  But  let  him  close  his  soul  to  the  pernicious  in 
fluence  of  that  spirit,  which  is  the  more  to  be  dreaded, 
as  it  is  insinuated  in  compositions  of  such  command 
ing  authority. 

In  the  department  of  philology,  kindred  to  that  of 
the  classics,  our  scholar  labored  with  peculiar  success. 


16 


Unless  some  memorandum  should  be  found  among 
his  papers,  as  was  the  case  with  Sir  William  Jones, 
specifying  the  languages  to  which  he  had  been  de 
voted,  it  may  be  difficult  to  frame  a  list  with  entire 
accuracy.  It  is  certain  that  he  was  familiar  with  at 
least  nine,  —  the  English,  French,  Portuguese,  Italian, 
Spanish,  German,  Romaic,  Greek,  and  Latin ;  of 
these  he  spoke  the  first  five.  He  was  less  familiar, 
though  well  acquainted,  with  the  Dutch,  Swedish, 
Danish,  and  Hebrew  ;  and  had  explored,  with  various 
degrees  of  care,  the  Arabic,  Turkish,  Syriac,  Persian, 
Coptic,  Sanscrit,  Chinese,  Cochin-Chinese,  Russian, 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  the  Malay  in  several  dialects, 
and  particularly  the  Indian  languages  of  America  and 
of  the  Polynesian  islands.  His  labors  span  immeas 
urable  spaces  in  the  world's  history,  —  embracing  the 
distant,  primeval  Sanscrit ;  the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt, 
now  awakening  from  their  mute  sleep  of  centuries ; 
the  polite  and  learned  tongues  of  ancient  and  modern 
Europe  ;  the  languages  of  Mohammedanism  ;  the  va 
rious  dialects  of  the  forests  of  North  America,  and  of 
the  sandal-groves  of  the  Pacific  ;  only  closing  with  a 
lingua  franca,  from  an  unlettered  tribe  on  the  coast 
of  Africa,  to  which  his  attention  had  been  called  even 
after  the  illness  which  ended  in  his  death. 

This  recital  alone  shows  the  variety  and  extent  of 
his  studies  in  a  department  which  is  supposed  to  be 
inaccessible,  except  to  peculiar  and  Herculean  toils. 
He  had  a  natural  and  intuitive  perception  of  the 
affinities  of  languages,  and  of  their  hidden  relations  ; 
and  his  labors  and  researches  have  thrown  important 


17 


light  upon  the  general  principles  that  prevail  in  this 
science,  as  also  on  the  history  and  character  of  indi 
vidual  languages.  In  devising  an  alphabet  of  the  In 
dian  tongues  of  North  America,  which  has  been 
since  adopted  in  the  Polynesian  islands,  he  render 
ed  brilliant  service  to  civilization.*  It  is  pleasant 
to  contemplate  the  scholar  sending  forth  from  his 
seclusion  this  priceless  instrument  of  improvement. 
On  the  beauteous  islands  once  moistened  by  the 
blood  of  Cook,  newspapers  and  books  are  printed  in 
a  native  language,  which  was  reduced  to  a  written 
character  by  the  care  and  genius  of  Pickering.  The 
Vocabulary  of  Americanisms,  and  the  Greek  and 
English  Lexicon,  attest  still  further  the  variety  and 
value  of  his  labors ;  nor  can  we  sufficiently  ad 
mire  the  facility  with  which,  amidst  the  duties  of 
an  arduous  profession,  and  other  efforts  of  scholarship, 
he  assumed  the  appalling  task  of  the  lexicographer. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  listen  to  expressions  in  dis 
paragement  of  the  labors  of  the  philologist,  treating 
them  sometimes  as  curious  only,  sometimes  as  trivial, 
or,  when  they  enter  into  lexicography,  sometimes  as 
those  of  a  harmless  drudge.  It  might  be  sufficient  to 
reply  to  these,  that  the  exercise  of  the  intellect  in 
a  manner  calculated  to  promote  forge tfuln ess  of  self, 
and  the  love  of  science  opening  a  taste  for  new  and 


*  There  is  in  the  correspondence  of  Leibnitz  a  proposition  for  a  new 
alphabet  of  the  Arabic,  ^Ethiopic,  Syriac,  and  other  languages,  which 
seems  to   be  not  unlike,  in  principle,   that  of  Pickering. — Leibnitz, 
Opera  (ed.  Dutens),  Vol.  VI.,  p.  88. 
3 


18 


simple  pleasures,  is  really,  though  perhaps  indirectly, 
ministering  to  human  improvement.  But  philology 
may  claim  other  suffrages.  It  is  its  province  to  aid 
in  determining  the  character  of  words,  their  extrac 
tion,  their  signification,  and  in  other  ways  to  guide 
and  explain  the  development  of  language ;  nor  is  it 
generous,  while  enjoying  the  flowers  of  poetry  and 
the  rich  fruits  of  literature,  to  withhold  our  gratitude 
from  him  who  spends  his  hours  in  exploring  the  roots 
and  in  training  the  tree. 

But  the  science  of  Comparative  Philology,  which 
our  scholar  has  illustrated  so  highly,  may  rank  with 
the  most  brilliant  pursuits.  It  boldly  challenges  a 
place  by  the  side  of  that  science  which  received  such 
development  from  the  genius  of  Cuvier.  The  study 
of  Comparative  Anatomy  has  thrown  unexpected  light 
on  the  physical  history  of  the  animate  creation  ;  but 
it  cannot  be  less  interesting  or  important  to  explore 
the  unwritten  history  of  the  human  race  in  the  lan 
guages  that  have  been  spoken,  to  trace  their  pedigree,  to 
detect  their  affinities,  seeking  the  great  prevailing  laws 
by  which  they  are  governed.  As  we  understand  these 
things,  confusion  and  discord  retreat,  the  frater 
nity  of  mankind  stands  confessed,  and  the  philol 
ogist  becomes  a  minister  at  the  altar  of  universal 
philanthropy.  In  the  study  of  the  past,  he  learns  to 
anticipate  the  future  ;  and  he  sees  with  Leibnitz,  in 
sublime  vision,  the  distant  prospect,  in  the  succession 
of  ages,  of  that  Unity  of  the  human  race,  which  shall 
find  its  expression  in  an  instrument  more  marvellous 


19 


than  the  Infinite  Calculus,  a  universal  language,  com 
posed  of  an  alphabet  of  human  thoughts.* 

As  the  sun  draws  moisture  from  the  rill,  from  the 
stream,  from  the  lake,  from  the  ocean,  again  to  be 
returned  in  fertilizing  showers  upon  the  earth,  so  did 
our  scholar  derive  knowledge  from  all  sources,  again 
to  be  diffused  in  beneficent  influences  upon  the  world. 
He  sought  it,  not  only  in  studies  of  all  kinds,  but  in 
converse  with  men,  and  in  the  experience  of  life.  His 
curious  essay  on  the  Pronunciation  of  the  Ancient 
Greek  Language  was  suggested  by  listening  to  the 
words  which  fell  from  some  Greek  sailors,  whom  the 
temptations  of  commerce  had  conducted  from  their 
tideless  sea  to  our  shores. 

Such  a  character,  devoted  to  labors  of  wide  and 
enduring  interest,  not  restrained  or  hemmed  in  by 
international  lines,  naturally  awakened  respect  and 
honor,  wherever  learning  was  cultivated.  His  name 
was  proudly  associated  with  many  of  the  most  illus 
trious  fraternities  of  science  in  foreign  nations,  while 
scholars  who  could  not  know  him  face  to  face,  by  an 
amiable  commerce  of  letters,  sought  the  aid  and  sym 
pathy  of  his  learning.  His  death  has  broken  these 
living  links  of  fellowship  ;  but  his  name,  that  cannot 
die,  shall  continue  to  bind  all  who  love  knowledge  and 
virtue  to  the  land  which  was  blessed  by  his  presence. 

From  the   Scholar  I  pass  to  THE  JURIST.     JOSEPH 


*  Fontehelle,  Eloge  de  Leibnitz.      Leibnitz,  Opera  (ed.  Dutens),  Vol. 
V.,  p.  7. 


20 


STORY  died  in  the  month  of  September,  1845,  aged 
sixty-six.  His  countenance,  so  familiar  in  this  pres 
ence,  was  always  so  beaming  with  goodness  and  kind 
ness,  that  its  withdrawal  seems  to  lessen  most  sensibly 
the  brightness  of  the  scene.  We  are  assembled  near 
the  seat  of  his  most  pleasant  pursuits,  among  the 
neighbours  familiar  with  his  private  virtues,  close  by 
the  home  hallowed  by  his  domestic  altar.  These 
paths  he  often  trod ;  and  all  that  our  eyes  may  here 
look  upon  seems  to  reflect  his  benignant  regard.  His 
intimate  official  relations  with  the  University,  his  high 
judicial  station,  his  higher  character  as  a  jurist,  invest 
his  name  with  a  peculiar  interest ;  while  the  uncon 
scious  kindness  which  he  ever  showed  to  all,  and  es 
pecially  to  the  young,  makes  them  rise  up  and  call 
him  blessed.  How  fondly  would  the  youth  nurtured 
in  jurisprudence  at  his  feet,  were  such  an  offering, 
Alcestis-like,  within  the  allotments  of  Providence, — 

"  similis  si  permutatio  detur,"  *  — 

have  prolonged  their  beloved  master's  days  at  the  ex 
pense  of  their  own ! 

This  University  has  already,  by  the  voice  of  his 
learned  associate,  rendered  its  tribute  of  respect  to 
his  name.  The  tribunals  of  justice,  throughout  the 
country,  have  given  utterance  to  their  solemn  grief; 
and  the  funeral  torch  has  passed  across  the  sea  into 
foreign  lands. 

He  has  been  heard  to  confess  that  literature  was  his 
earliest  passion,  which  yielded  only  to  the  stern  sum- 

*  Juvenal,  VI.,  653. 


21 


mons  of  duty,  beckoning  him  to  the  toils  of  profes 
sional  life  ;  and  they  who  knew  him  best  cannot  for 
get  that  this  sentiment  pervaded  his  days,  as  with  the 
perfume  of  flowers.  He  continued  to  the  last  fond  of 
poetry  and  polite  letters,  and  would  often  turn  from 
the  austere  countenance  of  Themis  to  the  more  kindly 
Muses.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  this  feature, 
which  points  the  resemblance  between  him  and  Sel- 
den,  Sorners,  Mansfield,  and  Blackstone,  in  England, 
and  L'Hopital  and  D'Aguesseau,  in  France,  has  added 
to  the  brilliancy  and  perfection  of  his  character  as  a 
jurist.  It  would  not  be  easy  in  the  history  of  juris 
prudence  to  mention  a  single  name  to  whom  its  high 
est  palm  belongs,  who  was  not  a  scholar. 

The  hardships  of  the  early  study  of  the  law,  which 
had  perplexed  the  youthful  spirit  of  Spelman,  beset 
him  with  disheartening  force.  Let  the  young  remem 
ber  his  trials  and  his  triumphs,  and  be  of  good  cheer. 
According  to  the  custom  of  his  day,  while  yet  a  stu 
dent  of  law,  in  the  town  of  Marblehead,  he  under 
took  to  read  Coke  on  Littleton,  in  the  large  folio  edi 
tion,  thatched  over  with  those  manifold  annotations 
which  cause  the  best  trained  lawyer  "  to  gasp  and 
stare."  As  he  strove  in  vain  to  force  his  weary  way 
through  its  rugged  page,  he  was  filled  with  despair. 
It  was  but  for  a  moment.  The  tears  poured  from  his 
eyes  upon  the  open  book.  Those  tears  were  his  pre 
cious  baptism  into  the  learning  of  the  law.  From  that 
time  forth,  he  persevered  with  confirmed  ardor  and 
confidence,  without  let  or  hindrance. 

He  was  elevated  to  a  seat  on  the  bench  of  the  Su- 


22 


preme  Court  of  the  United  States,  by  the  side  of 
Marshall,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-two.  It  was  at 
the  same  age  that  Duller,  unquestionably  the  ablest 
judge  of  Westminster  Hall,  who  did  not  arrive  at  the 
honors  of  Chief  Justice,  was  induced  to  renounce  an 
income  larger  than  the  salary  of  a  judge,  to  take  a 
seat  by  the  side  of  Mansfield.  The  parallel  continues. 
During  the  remainder  of  Mansfield's  career  on  the 
bench,  Buller  was  the  friend  and  associate  upon  whom 
he  chiefly  leaned  for  support ;  and  history  records  that 
it  was  a  darling  desire  of  the  venerable  chief  justice, 
that  his  younger  associate  should  succeed  to  his  seat 
and  chain  of  office  ;  but  these  wishes,  the  hopes  of  the 
profession,  and  his  own  long  services  were  disregarded 
by  a  minister  who  seldom  rewarded  any  but  political 
labors,  —  I  mean  Mr.  Pitt.  Our  brother,  like  Buller, 
was  the  friend  and  associate  of  his  venerable  chief 
justice,  by  whose  side  he  sat  for  many  years ;  nor  do  I 
state  any  fact  which  is  not  proper  in  the  light  of  his 
tory,  when  I  add  that  it  was  the  long-cherished  de 
sire  of  Marshall  that  Story  should  be  his  successor. 
It  was  ordered  otherwise;  and  he  continued  a  justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
space  of  thirty-four  years,  —  a  judicial  life  of  almost 
unexampled  length  in  the  history  of  the  common  law, 
of  precisely  the  same  duration  with  that  of  D'Agues- 
seau,  the  consummate  chancellor  of  France. 

As  a  judge,  he  was  called  upon  to  administer  a  most 
extensive  jurisdiction,  embracing  matters  which,  in 
England,  never  come  before  any  single  judge;  and  in 
each  department  he  has  shown  himself  second  to  none 


other,  unless  we  unite  with  him  in  deferring  to  Mar 
shall  as  the  highest  expounder  of  a  branch  peculiar  to 
ourselves,  constitutional  law.  Nor  will  it  be  easy  to 
mention  any  judge  who  has  left  behind  so  large  a 
number  of  opinions  which  take  their  place  in  the  first 
class.  It  happens  to  some  to  excel  in  a  special  branch, 
to  which  their  learning  and  labor  have  been  directed. 
He  excelled  in  all.  He  was  at  home  in  the  feudal 
niceties  of  real  law,  with  its  dependencies  of  descents, 
remainders,  and  executory  devises ;  also  in  the  hair 
splitting  technicalities  of  special  pleading,— -both  crea 
tures  of  an  illiterate  age,  gloomy  with  black-letter  and 
verbal  subtilties  ;  he  employed  and  expounded  with 
freedom  and  skill  the  rules  of  evidence,  the  product 
of  a  more  refined  period  of  juridical  history ;  he  was 
master  of  the  common  law  of  contracts,  of  the  wide 
and  interesting  expanse  of  commercial  law,  embracing 
so  large  a  part  of  those  topics  which  most  concern  the 
business  of  our  age  ;  he  was  familiar  with  the  criminal 
law,  which  he  administered  with  the  learning  of  a 
judge  and  the  tenderness  of  a  parent ;  he  had  com 
passed  the  whole  circle  of  chancery,  both  in  its  juris 
diction  and  its  pleadings,  touching,  as  it  does,  all  the 
interests  of  life,  and  subtilely  adapting  the  common  law 
to  our  own  age ;  and  he  ascended  with  ease  to  those 
heights  of  jurisprudence,  less  trod  than  others,  where 
are  extended  the  open,  pleasant  demesnes  of  the 
admiralty  and  public  law,  embracing  the  law  of  prize, 
and  that  theme  into  which  enters  history,  the  life  of 
man,  philosophy,  learning,  literature,  all  that  human 
experience  has  recorded  or  established,  and  that  Chris 
tianity  has  declared,  the  Law  of  Nations. 


But  it  was  not  as  a  judge  only  that  he  labored.  He 
sought  still  other  means  of  illustrating  the  science  of 
the  law,  and  added  to  the  cares  of  judicial  life  the 
responsibilities  of  an  author  and  a  teacher.  He  was 
moved  to  this  by  his  love  of  the  science,  by  his  desire 
to  aid  in  its  elucidation,  and  by  the  irrepressible  in 
stincts  of  his  nature,  which  found  in  incessant  activity 
the  truest  repose.  He  was  of  that  rare  and  happy 
constitution  of  mind  in  which  occupation  is  the  normal 
state.  He  had  a  genius  for  labor.  Others  may  moil 
in  the  law  as  constantly  as  he,  but  without  his  loving 
earnestness  of  study.  What  he  undertook  he  always 
did  with  his  heart,  soul,  and  mind  ;  not  with  reluctant, 
vain  compliance,  but  with  his  entire  nature  bent  to  the 
task.  As  in  his  friendships  and  in  the  warmth  of  soci 
ety,  so  he  was  in  his  studies.  His  heart  embraced  la 
bor,  as  his  hand  grasped  the  hand  of  friend. 

As  a  teacher,  he  should  be  gratefully  remembered 
here.  He  was  Dane  Professor  of  Law  in  the  Uni 
versity.  By  the  attraction  of  his  name  students  were 
drawn  from  the  most  remote  parts  of  the  Union  ;  and 
the  Law  School,  which  had  been  a  sickly  branch, 
became  the  golden  mistletoe  of  our  ancient  oak.  Be 
sides  learning  unsurpassed  in  his  profession,  which  he 
brought  to  these  duties,  he  displayed  other  qualities 
which  are  not  less  important  in  the  character  of  a 
teacher,  —  goodness,  benevolence,  and  a  willingness 
to  teach.  Only  a  good  man  can  be  a  teacher ;  only  a 
benevolent  man  ;  only  a  man  willing  to  teach.  He 
was  filled  with  a  desire  to  teach.  He  sought  to  min 
gle  his  mind  with  that  of  his  pupil.  He  held  it  a 


blessed  office  to  pour  into  the  souls  of  the  young,  as 
into  celestial  urns,  the  sweet  waters  of  knowledge. 
The  kindly  enthusiasm  of  his  nature  found  its  re 
sponse.  The  law,  which  is  sometimes  supposed  to  be 
harsh  and  crabbed,  became  inviting  under  his  instruc 
tions.  Its  great  principles,  drawn  from  the  wells  of 
experience  and  reflection,  from  the  sacred  rules  of  right 
and  wrong,  from  the  unsounded  depths  of  Christian 
truth,  illustrated  by  the  learning  of  sages  and  the 
judgments  of  courts,  he  unfolded  so  as  best  to  inspire 
a  love  for  their  study,  well  knowing  that  the  knowl 
edge  we  may  impart  is  trivial,  compared  with  that 
awakening  of  the  soul  under  the  influence  of  which 
the  pupil  himself  becomes  a  teacher.  All  of  knowl 
edge  we  can  communicate  is  finite ;  a  few  pages,  a 
few  chapters,  a  few  volumes,  will  embrace  it ;  but 
such  an  influence  is  incalculable  in  its  extent.  It  is 
another  soul  ;  it  is  the  breath  of  a  new  life.  Story 
taught  as  a  Priest  of  the  law,  seeking  to  consecrate 
other  Priests.  In  him  the  spirit  spake,  not  with  the 
voice  of  an  earthly  calling,  but  with  the  softness, 
the  gentleness,  the  self- forgetful  earnestness  of  one 
pleading  in  behalf  of  justice,  of  knowledge,  of  human 
happiness.  His  well-loved  pupils  hung  upon  his  lips, 
and,  as  they  left  his  presence,  confessed  a  more  ex 
alted  reverence  for  virtue,  and  a  warmer  love  of 
knowledge  for  its  own  sake. 

The  spirit  which  filled  his  teachings  here  inspired 
his  life.  He  was,  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term,  a 
Jurist,  a  student  and  expounder  of  jurisprudence  as  a 
science ;  not  merely  a  lawyer  or  a  judge,  pursuing  it 

4 


26 


as  an  art.  This  distinction,  though  readily  perceived, 
is  not  always  regarded. 

The  members  of  the  profession,  whether  on  the 
bench  or  at  the  bar,  rarely  send  their  regards  beyond 
the  matter  directly  before  them.  The  lawyer  is  too 
often  content  with  the  applause  of  the  court-house, 
the  approbation  of  clients,  "  fat  contentions  and  flow 
ing  fees."  Too  seldom  in  his  life  does  he  render 
voluntary  aid  in  the  development  of  any  principle 
which  can  be  felt  widely  beyond  the  limited  circle  in 
which  he  moves,  or  which  can  help  to  carry  forward 
or  secure  the  landmarks  of  justice.  The  judge,  in 
the  discharge  of  his  duty,  applies  the  law  to  the  cases 
before  him.  He  may  do  this  discreetly,  honorably, 
justly,  benignly,  in  such  wise  that  the  community, 
who  have  looked  to  him  for  justice,  shall  pronounce 
his  name  with  gratitude  ;  — 

"  that  his  bones, 

When  he  has  run  his  course  and  sleeps  in  blessings, 
May  have  a  tomb  of  orphan's  tears  wept  on  'em."  * 

But  the  function  of  the  mere  lawyer  and  judge, 
both  of  them  practising  law,  is  widely  different  from 
that  of  the  jurist,  who,  whether  judge  or  lawyer,  ex 
amines  every  principle  in  the  light  of  science,  and 
seeks,  while  he  does  justice,  to  widen  and  confirm  the 
means  of  justice  hereafter.  All  ages  have  abounded 
in  lawyers  and  judges ;  there  is  no  church-yard  that 
does  not  contain  their  forgotten  dust.  But  the  jurist 
is  rare.  The  judge  passes  the  sentence  of  the  law 
upon  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  face  to  face,  —  but  the 

*  Henry  VIIL,  Act  3,  Scene  2. 


27 


jurist,  invisible  to  mortal  sight,  jet  speaks ;  as  was 
said  of  the  Roman  law,  swaying  by  the  reason,  when 
he  has  ceased  to  govern  by  the  living  voice.  Such  a 
character  does  not  live  merely  for  the  present,  wheth 
er  in  time  or  place.  He  lifts  himself  aloft,  above  its 
petty  temptations,  and,  yielding  neither  to  the  love  of 
gain  nor  to  the  seductions  of  a  loud  and  short-lived 
praise,  perseveres  in  those  serene  labors  which  help 
to  build  the  mighty  dome  of  justice,  beneath  which  all 
men  are  to  seek  harmonious  shelter. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  listen  to  the  complaints  of 
lawyers  and  judges,  as  they  liken  their  fame  to  that 
of  the  well-graced  actor,  of  whose  hold  on  the  public 
mind  only  uncertain  traces  remain,  when  his  voice  has 
ceased  to  charm.  But  they  labor  for  the  present  only. 
How  can  they  hope  to  be  remembered  beyond  the 
present  ?  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  the  instru 
ments  of  a  temporary  and  perishable  purpose.  How 
can  they  hope  for  the  gratitude  which  attends  labors 
that  are  imperishable  and  eternal  ?  They  do  nothing 
for  all.  How  can  they  think  to  be  remembered  beyond 
the  operation  of  their  labors  ?  So  far  forth,  in  time  or 
place,  as  a  man's  beneficent  influence  is  felt,  so  far  will 
he  be  gratefully  commemorated.  Happy  may  he  be, 
if  he  has  done  aught  to  connect  his  name  with  the 
great  principles  of  justice  ! 

In  the  world's  history,  the  lawgivers  are  among  the 
highest  and  most  godlike  characters.  They  are  the 
reformers  of  nations.  They  are  the  builders  of  human 
society.  They  are  the  fit  companions  of  the  master 
poets,  who  fill  it  with  their  melody.  Man  will  never 
forget  Homer,  Virgil,  Dante,  Shakspeare,  Milton, 


Goethe ;  nor  those  other  names  of  creative  force, 
Minos,  Solon,  Lycurgus,  Numa,  Justinian,  St.  Louis, 
Napoleon.  Each  of  these  is  too  closely  linked  to 
human  progress  not  to  be  always  remembered. 

In  their  train  follow  the  company  of  jurists,  whose 
labors  have  the  importance  without  the  form  of  legis 
lation,  and  who,  by  their  recorded  opinions,  uttered 
from  the  chair  of  a  professor,  from  the  bench  of  a  judge, 
or,  it  may  be,  from  the  seclusion  of  private  life,  con 
tinue  to  rule  the  nations.  Here  are  Papinian,  Tribo- 
nian,  Paulus,  Gaius,  the  ancient  time-honored  mas 
ters  of  the  Roman  law  ;  Cujas,  its  most  illustrious  ex 
pounder  in  modern  times,  of  whom  D'Aguesseau  said, 
"  Cujas  has  spoken  the  language  of  the  law  better 
than  any  modern,  and  perhaps  as  well  as  any  ancient," 
and  whose  renown  was  such  during  his  life,  in  the 
golden  age  of  jurisprudence,  that  in  the  public  schools 
of  Germany,  when  his  name  was  mentioned,  all  took 
off  their  hats ;  Dumoulin,  the  relative  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  of  England,  and,  like  his  contemporary, 
Cujas,  the  pride  of  France,  of  whose  municipal  law 
he  was  the  most  illustrious  expounder,  —  of  one  of 
whose  books  it  was  said  it  had  accomplished  what 
thirty  thousand  soldiers  of  his  monarch  had  failed  to 
do ;  Hugo  Grotius,  the  author  of  that  great  work,  — 
at  times  divine,  alas  !  at  other  times  too  much  of  this 
earth,  —  the  Laws  of  Peace  and  War;  Pothier,  whose 
professor's  chair  was  kissed  in  reverence  by  pilgrims 
from  afar,  who  sent  forth  from  his  recluse  life  those 
treatises  which  enter  so  largely  into  the  invaluable 
codes  of  France;  the  crabbed  character,  Lord  Coke,  and 
the  silver-tongued  magistrate,  Lord  Mansfield,  both 


29 


of  whom  are  among  the  few  exemplars  which  the  juris 
prudence  of  the  common  law  may  boast  in  England; 
and,  descending  to  our  own  day,  Pardessus,  of  France, 
to  whom  commercial  and  maritime  law7  is  under  a 
larger  debt,  perhaps,  than  to  any  single  mind ;  Thibaut, 
of  Germany,  the  earnest  and  successful  advocate  of  a 
just  scheme  for  the  reduction  of  the  unwritten  law  to 
the  certainty  of  a  written  text ;  Savigny,  who  is  still 
spared  to  us,  the  great  living  illustrator  of  the  Roman 
law ;  Romagnosi,  that  heroic  spirit  of  modern  Italy, 
only  lately  called  before  the  seat  of  justice  in  heaven  ; 
and  in  our  own  country,  one  now  happily  among  us 
to-day,  by  his  son,*  —  James  Kent,  the  unquestioned 
living  head  of  American  jurisprudence.  These  are 
among  the  jurists.  Let  them  not  be  confounded  with 
the  lawryer,  bustling  with  forensic  success,  although  in 
his  life,  like  Dunning,  he  may  have  been  the  arbiter  of 
Westminster  Hall,  or,  like  Pinkney,  the  acknowledged 
chief  of  the  American  bar.  The  great  jurist  is  high 
er  far  than  the  lawyer;  as  Watt,  who  invented  the 
steam-engine,  is  higher  than  the  journeyman  who  feeds 
its  fires  and  pours  oil  upon  its  irritated  machinery; 
as  Washington  is  more  exalted  than  the  Swiss  who 
sells  the  vigor  of  his  arm  and  the  sharpness  of  his  spear 
to  the  largest  bidder. 

The  lawyer  is  the  honored  artisan  of  the  law.  He 
may  be  surrounded  with  all  the  tokens  of  worldly  suc 
cess,  filling  the  mind,  perhaps,  with  visions  destined 


*  Hon.  William  Kent,  recently  appointed  Royall  Professor  of  Law  in 
Harvard  University. 


30 


early  to  be  dispersed;  but  his  labors  are  on  the  things 
of  to-day.  His  name  is  written  on  the  sandy  margin 
of  the  sounding  sea,  soon  to  be  washed  away  by  the 
embossed  foam  of  the  tyrannous  wave.  Not  so  is  the 
jurist's.  His  is  inscribed  high  on  the  immortal  tablets 
of  the  law.  The  ceaseless  flow  of  ages  does  not  wear 
away  their  indestructible  front ;  the  hour-glass  of  time 
refuses  to  measure  the  period  of  their  duration. 

It  is  into  the  company  of  jurists  that  Story  has  now 
passed.  It  is  this  which  secures  him  a  place,  not  only 
in  the  history  of  his  country,  but  in  all  history.  It  was 
a  saying  of  his,  often  uttered  in  the  confidence  of 
friendship,  that  a  man  is  to  be  measured  by  the  horizon 
of  his  mind,  whether  it  embraced  the  village,  town, 
county,  or  state  in  which  he  lived,  or  the  whole  broad 
country,  ay,  the  circumference  of  the  world.  In  this 
spirit  he  lived  and  wrought,  elevating  himself  above 
the  present,  both  in  time  and  place,  and  always  find 
ing  in  jurisprudence  an  absorbing  interest.  Only  a 
few  days  before  the  illness  which  ended  in  his  death, 
it  was  suggested  to  him,  in  conversation  with  regard 
to  his  life,  on  his  intended  retirement  from  the  bench, 
that  a  wish  had  been  expressed  by  many  to  see  him  a 
candidate  for  the  highest  political  office  of  the  country. 
He  replied  at  once,  spontaneously,  and  without  hesi 
tation,  "  That  the  station  of  President  of  the  United 
States  would  not  tempt  him  from  his  professor's  chair, 
and  the  calm  pursuit  of  jurisprudence."  Thus  spoke 
the  Jurist.  As  a  lawyer,  a  judge,  a  professor,  he  was 
always  a  jurist.  While  administering  justice  between 
parties,  he  sought  to  extract  from  their  cause  the  ele- 


31 


merits  of  future  justice,  and  to  advance  the  science  of 
the  law.  He  stamped  upon  his  judgments  a  value 
which  is  not  restrained  to  the  occasions  on  which  they 
were  pronounced.  Unlike  mere  medals,  of  importance 
to  certain  private  parties  only,  they  have  the  currency 
of  the  gold  coin  of  the  republic,  with  the  legend  and 
superscription  of  sovereignty,  wherever  they  go,  even 
in  foreign  lands. 

Many  years  before  his  death,  his  judgments  in  mat 
ters  of  Admiralty  and  Prize  had  arrested  the  attention 
of  that  illustrious  judge  and  jurist,  Lord  Stowell ;  and 
Sir  James  Mackintosh,  a  name  emblazoned  by  literature 
and  jurisprudence,  had  said  of  them,  that  they  were 
"justly  admired  by  all  cultivators  of  the  Law  of  Na 
tions."*  His  words  have  often  been  cited  as  authori 
ty  in  Westminster  Hall,  a  tribute  of  unwonted  char 
acter  to  a  foreign  jurist  ;f  and  the  Chief  Justice  of  Eng 
land  has  made  the  remarkable  declaration,  with  regard 
to  a  point  on  which  Story  had  differed  from  the  Queen's 
Bench,  that  his  opinion  would,  "  at  least,  neutralize 


*  Letter  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh  to  the  Honorable  Edward  Everett, 
dated  June  3,  1824. 

f  This  might  be  illustrated  by  many  references  to  the  English  Reports. 
The  following  extract  is  from  a  letter  of  William  Burge,  Esq.,  Q.  C., 
author  of  the  learned  and  elaborate  Commentaries  on  Colonial  and  Foreign 
Law,  addressed  to  Professor  Greenleaf,  dated  April  1,  1843.  "The 
name  of  Story  has  shed  so  much  lustre  on  the  jurisprudence  of  his  own 
country  and  that  of  Europe,  that  I  can  never  adequately  express  my 
share  of  the  obligations  he  has  conferred  on  both.  Our  judges  cite  him 
with  language  denoting  their  high  respect  for  his  talents  and  learning. 
I  have  found  in  all  his  writings  more  to  satisfy  minute  inquiries  and  im 
part  the  fullest  information  than  I  can  ever  meet  with  anywhere  else. 
May  that  great  and  good  man  be  long  spared  to  us !  " 


32 


the  effect  of  the  English  decision,  and  induce  any  of 
their  courts  to  consider  the  question  as  an  open  one."  * 
In  debate,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  Lord  Campbell 
characterized  him  as  "  greater  than  any  law-writer  of 
which  England  could  boast,  or  which  she  could  bring 
forward,  since  the  days  of  Blackstone  " ;  f  and,  in  a 
letter  to  our  departed  brother,  the  same  distinguished 
magistrate  said,  —  "I  survey,  with  increased  aston 
ishment,  your  extensive,  minute,  exact,  and  familiar 
knowledge  of  English  legal  writers  in  every  depart 
ment  of  the  law.  A  similar  testimony  to  your  juridical 
learning,  I  make  no  doubt,  would  be  offered  by  the 
lawyers  of  France  and  Germany,  as  well  as  of  Amer 
ica,  and  we  should  all  concur  in  placing  you  at  the 
head  of  the  jurists  of  the  present  age."  t  His  author 
ity  was  acknowledged  in  France  and  in  Germany,  the 
classic  lands  of  jurisprudence  ;  §  nor  is  it  too  much 


*  Letter  of  Lord  Denman  to  Charles  Sumner,  dated  September  29, 
1840.  The  case  to  which  Lord  Denman  referred  was  that  of  Peters  v. 
The  Warren  Insurance  Company,  3  Sumner's  Rep.  389,  where  Mr. 
Justice  Story  dissented  from  the  case  of  Devaux  v.  Salvador,  4  Adolph. 
&  Ellis,  420. 

f  Speech  on  Lord  Brougham's  motion  of  thanks  to  Lord  Ashburton, 
April  7,  1843. 

J  Letter  of  Lord  Campbell  to  Mr.  Justice  Story,  dated  September  29, 
1842. 

§  His  works  were  reviewed,  with  high  praise,  in  the  Revue  Etrangere 
of  Fcelix,  at  Paris,  and  in  the  Kritische  Zeitschnft  fur  Rechtswisscnschaft 
und  Gesetzgebung  of  Mittermaier,  at  Heidelberg.  Some  of  them  were 
translated  into  French  and  German  ;  and  that  eminent  jurist,  Savigny, 
at  Berlin,  said  of  him,  in  a  letter  to  Theodore  S.  Fay,  Esq.,  dated 
November  28,  1841,  — "  Depuis  longtemps  je  connais  et  estime  votre 
savant  compatriote  comme  un  homme  qui  fait  le  plus  grand  honneur  a 
sa  double  patrie,je  veux  dire  <i  VAmerique  et  <i  la  jurisprudence." 


33 


to  say,  that,  at  the  moment  of  his  death,  he  enjoyed  a 
renown  such  as  had  never  before  been  achieved,  during 
life,  by  any  jurist  of  the  common  law. 

In  mentioning  these  things,  I  merely  state  facts, 
without  intending  presumptuously  to  assert  for  our 
brother  any  precedence  in  the  scale  of  eminent  jurists. 
The  extent  of  his  fame  is  a  fact.  But  it  will  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  cultivators  of  the  common  law  have 
been  hitherto  confined  to  a  narrow  and  insular  repu 
tation.  Even  its  great  master  has  received  no  higher 
designation  on  the  Continent  than  quidam  Cocus,  a 
certain  Coke. 

In  the  common  law  was  the  spirit  of.  freedom ; 
in  that  of  the  Continent  the  spirit  of  science.  The 
common  law  has  given  to  the  world  the  trial  by 
jury,  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  the  system  of  parlia 
mentary  representation,  the  rules  and  orders  of  debate, 
and  that  benign  principle  which  pronounces  that  its 
air  is  too  pure  for  a  slave  to  breathe,  —  perhaps  the 
five  most  important  political  establishments  of  modern 
times.  From  the  Continent  has  been  derived  the 
important  impulse  to  the  systematic  study,  arrange 
ment,  and  development  of  the  law,  —  the  example  of 
Law  Schools  and  of  Codes. 

Story  was  bred  in  the  common  law ;  but  while  ad- 
rniring  its  vital  principles  of  freedom,  he  felt  how  much 
it  would  gain,  if  illumined  by  the  torch  of  science, 
and  the  light  of  other  systems  of  jurisprudence.  Much 
of  the  later  labors  of  his  life  was  specially  devoted  to 
this  object ;  and  under  his  hands,  we  behold  the  be 
ginning  of  a  new  study,  the  science  of  Comparative 

5 


34 


Jurisprudence,  kindred  to  those  other  departments  of 
knowledge  which  are  at  once  the  token  and  the  har 
binger  of  the  peaceful  association  of  nations. 

I  need  not  add  that  he  emulated  the  Law  Schools 
of  the  Continent ;  "  as  ever  witness  for  him  "  this  seat 
of  learning.* 

On  more  than  one  occasion,  he  urged,  with  conclu 
sive  force,  the  importance,  in  our  age,  of  reducing  our 
unwritten  law  to  the  certainty  of  a  Code,  compiling 
and  bringing  into  one  body  those  fragments  which  are 
now  scattered,  like  the  dissevered  limbs  of  Osiris,  in  all 
directions,  through  the  pages  of  many  thousand  vol- 
umes.f  His  views  on  this  high  subject,  while  they 
were  widely  different  from  those  of  John  Locke  and 
Jeremy  Bentham,  —  both  of  whom  seem  to  have  sup 
posed  themselves  able  to  clothe  a  people  in  a  new 
code  as  in  fresh  garments,  —  would,  probably,  be  found 
to  be  in  harmony  with  those  now  generally  adopted  by 
the  jurists  of  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  not  unlike 
those  expressed  in  an  earlier  age  by  Bacon  and  Leib 
nitz,  the  two  greatest  intellects  that  have  ever  been 
applied  to  topics  of  jurisprudence,  t 

*  It  is  said,  that  Wolsey,  to  whom  Ipswich  and  Oxford,  "  those  twins 
of  learning,"  one  of  which  fell  with  him,  were  so  much  indebted,  wished 
also  to  establish  a  Law  School ;  but  this  has  not  yet  been  done  in  Eng 
land.  —  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Chancellors,  Vol.  L,  p.  500. 

|  Encyclopaedia  Americana,  article  Law,  Legislation,  Codes,  Appen 
dix  to  Vol.  VII.,  pp.  586-592;  Report  of  the  Commissioners  of  Mas 
sachusetts  on  the  Codification  of  the  Common  Law  ;  American  Jurist, 
Vol.  XVII.,  p.  17. 

|  See  Bacon's  Offer  to  King  James  of  a  Digest  of  the  Laws  of  Eng 
land  ;  Leibnitz,  Opera,  Epist.  XV.  ad  Kestnerum,  Tom.  IV.,  Pars  4,  p. 
269;  Ratio  Corporis  Juris  reconcinnandi,  Tom.  IV.,  Pars  3,  p.  235. 


35 


In  this  catholic  spirit  he  showed  the  attribute  of  a 
superior  mind.  He  loved  the  law  with  a  lover's  fond 
ness,  but  not  with  a  lover's  blindness.  He  could  not 
join  with  those  devotees  of  the  common  law  by  whom 
it  has  been  entitled  "  the  perfection  of  reason,"  an 
anachronism  as  great  as  the  assumed  infallibility  of  the 
Pope  ;  as  if  perfection  or  infallibility  were  to  be  found 
in  this  life.  He  was  naturally  led,  in  a  becoming 
temper,  to  contemplate  its  amendment ;  and  here  is 
revealed  the  character  of -.the  Jurist,  not  content  with 
the  present,  but  thoughtful  of  the  future.  In  a  letter 
from  him,  which  has  been  published  since  his  death,1* 
he  refers,  with  sorrow,  to  "what  is  but  too  common 
in  our  profession,  a  disposition  to  resist  innovation, 
even  when  it  is  an  improvement."  It  is  only  an  ele 
vated  mind,  that,  having  mastered  the  subtilties  of  the 
law,  is  willing  to  reform  them. 

And  now,  farewell  to  thee,  Jurist,  Master,  Bene 
factor,  Friend!  May  thy  spirit  continue  to  inspire 
a  love  for  the  science  of  the  law  !  May  thy  example 
be  ever  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  young,  beaming,  as 
in  life,  with  encouragement,  kindness,  and  hope ! 

From  the  grave  of  the  Jurist,  at  Mount  Auburn,  let 
us  walk  to  that  of  THE  ARTIST,  who  sleeps  beneath 
the  protecting  arms  of  those  trees  which  cast  their 
shadow  into  this  church.  WASHINGTON  ALLSTON  died 
in  the  month  of  July,  1843,  aged  sixty-three,  having 
reached  the  grand  climacteric,  that  special  mile-stone 

*  Addressed  to  the  Principal  of  the  Dublin  Law  Institution,  dated  May 
15,  1844. 


36 


on  the  road  of  life.  It  was  Saturday  night ;  the 
cares  of  the  week  were  over;  the  pencil  and  brush 
were  laid  in  repose ;  the  great  canvass  on  which  for 
many  years  he  had  sought  to  perpetuate  the  image 
of  Daniel  confronting  the  idolatrous  soothsayers  of 
Belshazzar,  was  left,  with  the  chalk  lines  designating 
the  labors  to  be  resumed  after  the  rest  of  the  Sab 
bath  ;  the  evening  was  passed  in  the  pleasant  con 
verse  of  family  and  friends;  words  of  benediction 
had  fallen  from  his  lips  upon  a  beloved  relative ;  all 
had  retired  for  the  night,  leaving  him  alone,  in  health, 
to  receive  serenely  the  visitation  of  Death,  sudden  but 
not  unprepared  for.  Happy  lot !  thus  to  be  borne 
away,  with  blessings  on  the  lips,  not  through  the 
long  valley  of  disease,  amidst  the  sharpness  of  pain, 
and  the  darkness  that  beclouds  the  slowly  departing 
spirit,  but  straight  upward  through  realms  of  light, 
swiftly,  yet  gently,  as  on  the  wings  of  a  dove ! 

The  early  shades  of  evening  had  be^un  to  prevail, 
before  the  body  of  the  Artist  reached  its  last  resting- 
place  ;  and  the  solemn  service  of  the  church  was  read 
in  the  open  air,  by  the  flickering  flame  of  a  torch,  fit 
image  of  life.  In  the  group  of  mourners,  who  bore  by 
their  presence  a  last  tribute  to  what  was  mortal  in 
him  of  whom  so  much  was  immortal,  stood  the  great 
Jurist.  His  soul,  overflowing  with  tenderness  and 
appreciation  of  merit  of  all  kinds,  was  touched  by  the 
scene.  In  vivid  words,  as  he  slowly  left  the  church 
yard,  he  poured  forth  his  admiration  and  his  grief. 
Never  was  such  an  Artist  mourned  by  such  a  Jurist. 

Of  Allston    may  we   repeat  the  words   in   which 


37 


Burke  has  commemorated  his  friend  Sir  Joshua  Rey 
nolds,  when  he  says,  —  "  He  was  the  first  who  added 
the  praise  of  the  elegant  arts  to  the  other  glories  of  his 
country."  *  An  ingenious  English  writer,  who  sees  Art 
at  once  with  the  eye  of  taste  and  humanity,  has  said, 
in  a  recent  publication  on  our  Artist :  —  "It  seemed  to 
me,  that  in  him  America  had  lost  her  third  great  man. 
What  Washington  was  as  a  statesman,  Channing  as  a 
moralist,  that  was  Allston  as  an  Artist."  f 

And  here  again  we  discern  the  inseparable  link  be 
tween  character  and  works.  Allston  was  a  good  man, 
with  a  soul  refined  by  purity,  exalted  by  religion,  soft 
ened  by  love.  In  manner,  he  was  simple,  yet  courtly, 
—  quiet,  though  anxious  to  please,  —  kindly  alike  to 
all,  the  poor  and  lowly,  not  less  than  to  the  rich  and 
great,  —  a  modest,  unpretending,  Christian  gentle 
man.  As  he  spoke,  in  that  voice  of  softest  utterance, 
all  were  charmed  to  listen,  and  the  airy-footed  hours 
often  tripped  on  far  towards  the  gates  of  morning, 
before  his  friends  could  break  from  his  spell.  His 
character  is  transfigured  in  his  works;  and  the  Artist 
is  always  inspired  by  the  man. 

His  life  was  consecrated  to  Art.  He  lived  to  dif 
fuse  Beauty,  as  a  writer,  as  a  poet,  as  a  painter.  As 
an  expounder  of  the  principles  of  his  art,  he  will  take 
a  place  with  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Albert  Durer,  Joshua 
Reynolds,  and  Fuseli.  His  theory  of  painting,  as  de 
veloped  in  his  still  unpublished  discourses,  and  in  that 
tale  of  rare  beauty,  "  Monaldi,"  is  an  instructive 

*  Prior's  Life  of  Burke,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  189,  190. 
f  Mrs.  Jameson's  Memoirs  and  Essays. 


38 


memorial  of  his  conscientious  studies.  In  the  small 
group  of  painter-poets — poets  by  the  double  title  of 
the  pencil  and  the  pen  —  he  holds  an  honored  place. 
He  was  pronounced,  by  no  less  a  judge  than  Southey, 
to  be  one  of  the  first  poets  of  the  age.  His  ode  on 
England  and  America,  one  of  the  choicest  lyrics  in 
the  language,  is  immeasurably  superior  to  the  satiri 
cal  verse  of  Salvator  Rosa,  and  may  claim  compan 
ionship  with  the  remarkable  sonnets  of  Michel  An- 
gelo. 

In  his  youth,  while  yet  a  pupil  of  the  University,  his 
busy  fingers  found  pleasure  in  drawing,  and  there 
is  still  preserved,  in  the  records  of  one  of  our  soci 
eties,  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  from  his  hand.  Shortly 
after  leaving  Cambridge,  he  repaired  to  Europe,  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  art.  At  Paris  were  then  collected  the 
great  masterpieces  of  painting  and  sculpture,  the 
spoils  of  unholy  war,  robbed  from  their  native  galle 
ries  and  churches,  to  swell  the  pomp  of  the  imperial 
capital.  There  our  Artist  devoted  his  days  to  the 
diligent  study  of  his  chosen  profession,  particularly 
the  department  of  drawing,  so  important  to  accurate 
art.  Alluding  to  these  thorough  labors  at  a  later  day, 
he  said,  "  he  worked  like  a  mechanic."  Perhaps 
to  these  may  be  referred  his  singular  excellence  in 
that  necessary,  but  neglected  branch,  which  is  to  Art 
what  Grammar  is  to  language.  Grammar  and  Design 
are  treated  by  Aristotle  as  on  a  level.* 

Turning  his  back  upon  Paris,  and  the  greatness  of 

*  Politics,  V.  3. 


39 


the  Empire,  he  directed  his  steps  to  Italy,  the  en 
chanted  ground  of  literature,  of  history,  and  of  art,  — 
strown  with  richest  memorials  of  the  Past,  —  touching 
from  scenes  memorable  in  the  story  of  the  progress  of 
man,  —  teaching  by  the  pages  of  philosophers  and  his 
torians, —  vocal  with  the  melody  of  poets,  —  ringing 
with  the  music  which  St.  Cecilia  protects,  —  glowing 
with  the  living  marble  and  canvass,  —  beneath  a  sky 
of  heavenly  purity  and  brightness,  —  writh  the  sunsets 
which  Claude  has  painted,  —  parted  by  the  Apennines, 
early  witnesses  of  the  unrecorded  Etruscan  civiliza 
tion,  —  surrounded  by  the  snow-capped  Alps  and  the 
blue,  classic  waters  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  The 
deluge  of  war,  which  submerged  Europe,  had  here 
subsided;  and  our  Artist  took  up  his  peaceful  abode 
in  Rome,  the  modern  home  of  Art.  Strange  change 
of  condition !  Rome,  sole  surviving  city  of  An 
tiquity,  who  once  disdained  all  that  could  be  wrought 
by  the  cunning  hand  of  sculpture,  — 

"  Excudent  alii  spirantia  mollius  sera, 
Credo  equidem  :  vivos  ducent  de  marmore  vultus,"* — 

who  has  commanded  the  world  by  her  arms,  by  her 
jurisprudence,  by  her  church,  now  sways  it  further 
by  her  arts.  Pilgrims  from  afar,  where  neither  her 
eagles,  her  praetors,  nor  her  interdicts  ever  reached, 
become  the  willing  subjects  of  this  new  empire  ;  and 
the  Vatican,  stored  with  the  precious  remains  of  An 
tiquity,  and  the  touching  creations  of  a  Christian 
pencil,  has  succeeded  to  the  Vatican  whose  thunders 
intermingled  with  the  strifes  of  modern  Europe. 

*  ^Eneis,  VI.,  847. 


40 


At  Rome  he  was  happy  in  the  friendship  of  Cole 
ridge,  and  in  long  walks  in  his  instructive  company. 
We  can  well  imagine  that  the  author  of  Genevieve 
and  The  Ancient  Manner  would  find  especial  sympa 
thies  with  Allston.  We  behold  these  two  natures, 
tremblingly  alive  to  beauty  of  all  kinds,  looking  to 
gether  upon  those  majestic  ruins,  upon  the  manifold 
accumulations  of  Art,  upon  the  marble,  which  almost 
spoke,  and  upon  the  warmer  canvass,  —  listening  to 
gether  to  the  flow  of  the  perpetual  fountains,  fed  by 
ancient  aqueducts, — musing  together  in  the  Forum  on 
the  mighty  footprints  of  History, —  and  entering  to 
gether,  with  sympathetic  awe,  that  grand  Christian 
church  whose  dome  rises  a  majestic  symbol  of  the 
comprehensive  Christianity  which  shall  embrace  the 
whole  earth.  "Never judge  of  a  work  of  art  by  its 
defects,"  was  one  of  the  lessons  of  Coleridge  to  his 
companion,  which,  when  extended,  by  natural  ex 
pansion,  to  the  other  things  of  life,  is  a  sentiment 
of  justice  and  charity,  of  higher  value  than  a  statue 
of  Praxiteles,  or  a  picture  of  Raffael. 

In  England,  where  our  Artist  passed  several  years 
at  a  later  period,  his  intercourse  with  Coleridge  was 
renewed,  and  he  became  the  friend  and  companion  of 
Lamb  and  Wordsworth  also.  Afterwards,  on  his  re 
turn  to  his  own  country,  he  spoke  with  fondness  of 
these  men,  and  dwelt  with  delight  upon  their  genius 
and  virtues. 

In  considering  more  particularly  his  character  as  an 
Artist,  we  should  regard  his  attainments  in  three  dif 
ferent  respects,  —  drawing,  color,  and  expression,  or 


41 


sentiment.  It  has  already  been  seen  that  he  had  de 
voted  himself  with  uncommon  zeal  to  drawing.  His 
works  bear  witness  to  this  excellence.  There  are 
chalk  outlines,  sketched  on  canvass  by  him,  which 
are  as  clear  and  definite  as  any  thing  from  the  classic 
touch  of  Flaxman. 

His  excellence  in  color  was  remarkable.  This 
seeming  mystery,  which  is  a  distinguishing  charac 
teristic  of  the  artists  of  different  schools,  periods,  and 
countries,  is  not  unlike  that  of  language  or  style  in 
literature.  Color  is  to  the  painter  what  words  are  to 
the  author ;  and  as  the  writers  of  one  age  or  place 
arrive  at  a  peculiar  mastery  in  the  use  of  language, 
so  the  artists  of  a  particular  period  excel  in  color. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  account  satisfactorily  for  the 
rich  idiom  suddenly  assumed  by  our  English  tongue 
in  the  contemporaneous  prose  of  Bacon,  Hooker,  and 
Jeremy  Taylor,  and  in  the  unapproached  variety  of 
Shakspeare.  It  might  be  as  difficult  to  account  for 
the  unequalled  tints  which  shone  on  the  canvass  of 
Tintoretto,  Paul  Veronese,  and  Titian,  masters  of 
what  is  called  the  Venetian  School.  The  ignorance 
of  some  inquirers  has  referred  these  glories  to  con 
cealed  or  lost  artistic  rules  in  the  combination  of 
colors  ;  not  thinking  that  it  can  be  traced  only  to  a 
peculiar  native  talent  for  color,  as  there  is  a  native 
talent  for  language,  which  was  prompted  to  its  display 
by  circumstances  difficult  at  this  late  period  fully  to 
determine.  As  it  happens  that  some  persons  possess 
a  peculiar  and  unbought  felicity  and  copiousness  of 
words,  without  an  accurate  knowledge  of  grammar, 


42 


so  there  are    artists   excelling  in   rich   and    splendid 
colors,  but  ignorant  of  drawing  ;   while,  on  the  other 
hand,  accurate  drawing  is   sometimes  coldly  clad   In 
k  or  imperfect  colors. 

Allston  was  largely  endowed  by  nature  with  the 
talent  for  color,  which  was  strongly  developed  under 
the  influence  of  Italian  art.  While  in  Rome,  he  was 
remarked  for  his  excellence  in  this  respect,  and  re 
ceived  from  the  German  painters  who  were  there  the 
high  tide  of  the  American  Titian.*  Critics  of  authority 
have  said  that  the  clearness  and  vigor  of  his  coloring 
approached  that  of  the  elder  masters.f  It  was  rich 
and  harmonious  as  the  verses  of  the  Fairy  Queen, 
and  was  uniformly  soft,  mellow,  and  appropriate,  with 
out  the  garish  brilliancy  of  the  modern  French  school, 
which  in  its  disturbing  influence  calls  to  mind  the 
saying  of  the  blind  man,  that  red  resembled  the  notes 
of  a  trumpet. 

He  affected  no  secret  or  mystery  in  the  preparation 
of  colors.  What  he  knew  he  was  ready  to  impart 
to  others;  his  genius  he  could  not  impart.  With  the 
simple  pigments,  accessible  alike  to  all,  he  reproduced, 
with  glowing  brush,  the  tints  of  nature.  All  that  his 
eyes  looked  upon  furnished  a  lesson  ;  the  flowers  of 
the  field,  the  foliage  of  the  forest,  the  sunset  glories 
of  our  western  horizon,  the  transparent  azure  above 
us,  the  blackness  of  the  storm,  the  soft  gray  of  twi- 

*  Dunlap's  History  of  the  Arts  of  Design,  Vol.  II.,  p.  167;  Mrs. 
Jameson's  Memoirs  and  Sketches. 

f  Bunsen,  Beschreibung  der  Stadt  Rom.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  538.  Article 
on  Modern  Art,  by  K.  Plainer. 


light,  the  haze  of  an  Indian  summer,  the  human 
countenance  animate  with  thought  and  emotion, — and 
that  finest  color  in  nature,  according  to  the  ancient 
Greek,  the  blush  of  an  ingenuous  youth.  These 
were  the  sources  from  which  he  drew.  With  a  dis 
cerning  spirit  he  mixed  them  on  his  pallet,  and  with 
the  eye  of  sympathy  saw  them  again  on  his  can 
vass. 

But  richness  of  coloring,  superadded  to  accuracy  of 
drawing,  cannot  secure  the  highest  place  in  Art.  The 
expression,  the  sentiment,  the  thought,  the  soul,  which 
sits  on  the  canvass,  is  not  less  important  than  that 
which  animates  the  printed  page  or  beams  from  the 
human  countenance.  The  mere  imitation  of  inani 
mate  nature  belongs  to  the  humbler  schools  of  art. 
The  skill  of  Zeuxis,  which  drew  the  birds  to  peck  at 
the  grapes  on  his  canvass,  and  the  triumph  of  Par- 
rhasius,  who  deceived  his  rival  by  a  painted  curtain, 
cannot  compare  with  those  pictures  which  seem 
articulate  with  all  the  various  voices  of  humanity. 
The  highest  form  of  art  is  that  which  represents  man 
in  the  highest  scenes  and  under  the  influence  of  the 
highest  sentiments.  And  that  quality,  or  character 
istic,  which  has  been  sometimes  called  expression,  is 
the  highest  element  of  art.  It  is  this  which  gives  to 
Raffael,  who  yields  to  Titian  in  color,  such  an  emi 
nence  among  artists.  His  soul  was  brimming  with 
sympathies,  which  his  cunning  hand  has  kept  alive  in 
immortal  pictures.  Here  the  eye,  the  mouth,  the  coun 
tenance,  the  whole  composition,  has  life,  —  not  the 
life  of  mere  imitation,  copied  from  common  nature, 


but  elevated,  softened,  purified,  idealized.  As  we 
behold  his  works,  we  forget  the  colors  in  which  they 
are  robed  ;  we  gaze,  as  at  living  forms  ;  and  seem  to 
look  behind  the  painted  screen  of  flesh  into  living 
souls.  A  genius,  so  largely  endowed  with  the  Pro 
methean  fire,  has  not  unaptly  been  called  Divine. 

It  was  said  by  Plato,  that  nothing  is  beautiful, 
which  is  not  morally  good.  But  this  is  not  a  faultless 
proposition.  Beauty  is  of  all  kinds  and  degrees,  as  it 
is  everywhere,  beneath  the  celestial  canopy,  in  us 
and  about  us.  It  is  that  completeness  or  finish  of  any 
thing,  which  gives  pleasure  to  the  mind.  It  is  to  be 
found  in  the  color  of  a  flower  and  in  the  accuracy 
of  geometry,  in  an  act  of  self-sacrifice  and  in  the 
rhythm  of  a  poem,  in  the  virtues  of  humanity  and 
in  the  marvels  of  the  visible  world,  in  the  meditations 
of  a  solitary  soul  and  in  the  stupendous  mechanism 
of  civil  society.  There  is  beauty  where  there  is  nei 
ther  life  nor  morality ;  but  the  highest  form  of  beauty 
is  in  the  perfection  of  our  moral  nature. 

The  highest  beauty  of  expression  is  a  grace  of 
Christian  art.  It  flows  from  the  sensibilities,  affec 
tions,  and  struggles  which  are  peculiar  to  the  Christian 
character.  It  breathes  purity,  gentleness,  meekness, 
patience,  tenderness,  peace.  It  abhors  pride,  vain 
glory,  selfishness,  intemperance,  lust,  war.  How  ce 
lestial  is  this,  compared  with  the  grace  which  dwells 
in  the  perfection  of  form  and  color  only  !  The  beauty 
of  ancient  art  found  its  highest  expression  in  the  fault 
less  form  of  Aphrodite  rising  from  the  sea,*  and  in  the 

*  Ovid,  Tristia,  Lib.  II.,  527. 


45 


majestic  mien  of  Juno,  with  snow-white  arms,  and 
royal  robes,  seated  on  a  throne  of  gold  ;  *  not  in  the 
soul-lit  countenance  of  her  who  watched  the  infant  in 
his  manger-cradle,  and  throbbed  with  a  mother's  ecsta 
sies  beneath  the  agonies  of  the  cross. 

Allston  was  a  Christian  artist,  and  the  beauty  of 
expression  lends  an  uncommon  charm  to  his  colors. 
All  that  he  did  shows  sensibility,  refinement,  delicacy, 
feeling,  rather  than  force.  His  genius  was  almost 
feminine.  As  he  advanced  in  life,  this  was  more  re 
marked.  His  pictures  became  more  and  more  instinct 
with  those  higher  sentiments  which  form  the  truest 
glory  of  Art. 

Early  in  life,  he  had  a  fondness  for  pieces  repre 
senting  banditti ;  but  this  taste  does  not  appear  in  his 
later  works.  On  more  than  one  occasion,  he  expressed 
a  disinclination  to  paint  battle-pieces.  In  so  doing,  his 
artistic  taste,  which  did  not  separate  morality  from  art, 
unconsciously  judged  the  morality  of  the  picture.  Lu 
cretius  has  said,  in  often  quoted  lines,  that  it  is  pleas 
ant,  when  removed  beyond  the  reach  of  danger,  to 
behold  the  shock  of  contending  armies :  — 

"  Per  campos  instructa,  tua  sine  parte  pericli, 
Suave  etiam  belli  certamina  magna  tueri."f 

But  this  is  a  heathen  sentiment,  which  Christianity 

*  Martial,  Lib.  X.,  Epig.  89. 

f  Lib.  II.  5.  The  Greek  epigrammatist,  describing  the  Philoctetes  of 
Parrhasius,  an  image  of  hopeless  wretchedness  and  consuming  grief, 
rises  to  a  higher  sentiment,  when  he  says,  — 

"  We  blame  thee,  painter,  though  thy  art  commend  : 
'T  was  time  his  sufferings  with  himself  should  end." 

Anthol.,  Lib.  IV. 


46 


and  humanity  disown.  The  artist  of  purest  aims  feels 
that  no  scene  of  human  strife  can  find  a  place  in  the 
highest  art ;  that  man,  created  in  the  image  of  God, 
should  never  be  pictured  degrading,  profaning,  vio 
lating  that  sacred  image. 

Were  this  sentiment  general  in  art  and  literature, 
war  would  be  shorn  of  its  false  glory.  Let  our  poets, 
our  historians,  our  orators,  join  with  the  Artist,  in  say 
ing,  JVb  battle-piece.  Let  them  cease  to  dwell,  except 
with  pain  and  reprobation,  upon  those  dismal  exhibi 
tions  of  human  passion,  in  which  the  lives  of  friends 
are  devoted,  to  procure  the  death  of  enemies.  Let  no 
Christian  pen,  let  no  Christian  tongue,  dignify,  by 
praise  or  picture,  scenes  from  which  God  averts  his 
eye.  It  is  true,  man  has  slain  his  fellow-man  ;  armies 
have  rushed  in  deadly  shock  against  armies ;  the  blood 
of  brothers  has  been  spilled.  These  are  facts  which 
history  must  enter  sorrowfully,  tearfully,  in  her  faithful 
record  ;  but  let  her  not  perpetuate  the  passions  from 
which  they  sprung,  by  investing  them  with  her  attrac 
tions.  Let  her  dwell,  with  eulogy  and  pride,  on  those 
acts  which  are  noble,  true,  Christ-like  in  their  charac 
ter.  Let  these  be  preserved  by  the  votive  canvass  and 
marble.  But  no  battle-pieces  ! 

In  the  progress  of  moral  truth,  the  animal  passions, 
which  degrade  our  nature,  are,  by  degrees,  checked 
and  subdued.  The  license  of  lust,  and  the  brutality 
of  intemperance,  which  mark  the  periods  of  a  civiliza 
tion  inferior  to  our  own,  are  now  driven  from  public 
displays.  Art  faithfully  reflects  the  character  of  the 
age,  and  libertinism  and  intemperance  now  no  longer 


47 


intrude  their  obscene  faces  in  any  of  its  pictures.  The 
time  is  at  hand  when  religion,  humanity,  and  taste 
will  all  concur  in  likewise  rejecting  any  representation 
of  human  strife.  Lais  and  Phryne  have  fled;  Bac 
chus  and  Silenus  have  been  driven  reeling  from  the 
scene.  Mars  will  soon  follow,  howling,  as  with  the 
wound  which  he  received  from  the  Grecian  spear,  in 
the  field  before  Troy. 

In  the  grand  mission  of  teaching  to  nations  and  to 
individuals  wherein  is  true  greatness,  Art  has  a  noble 

O  ' 

office  to  perform.  If  she  be  not  a  herald,  she  is  at 
least  a  handmaid,  of  Truth.  Her  lessons  may  not  train 
the  intellect,  but  they  cannot  fail  to  touch  the  heart. 
Who  can  measure  the  blessed  influence  of  an  image  of 
beauty,  affection,  and  truth?  The  Christus  Conso- 
lator  of  Schefler,  voiceless  and  without  a  word,  wins 
the  soul  to  the  Christian  graces,  and  makes  it  overflow 
with  gratitude  to  the  artist.  It  is  only  works  which, 
like  this,  are  animated  by  the  godlike  part  of  our  na 
ture,  that  can  hope  for  a  wide  immortality.  The 
flowers  which  spring  from  the  bad  passions  of  man 
must  fade  and  be  forgotten,  even  as  the  perishing 
flowers  of  this  earth ;  while  those  which  are  inspired 
by  the  heavenly  sentiments  shall  live  in  perennial, 
amaranthine  bloom.  The  Hall  of  Battles,  at  Ver 
sailles,  in  which  Louis  Philippe,  the  great  conser 
vator  of  peace,  has  arrayed,  on  acres  of  canvass,  the 
bloody  contests  which  disfigure  the  long  history  of 
France,  will  be  shut,  with  mortification  and  shame, 
by  a  generation  that  shall  appreciate  the  true  glory 
of  the  kingdom. 


48 


Allston  loved  excellence  for  its  own  sake.  He 
looked  down  upon  the  common  strife  for  worldly  con 
sideration.  With  rare  beauty  of  truth  and  expression, 
he  said,  that  "  Fame  is  the  eternal  shadow  of  excel 
lence,  from  which  it  can  never  be  separated."  Here 
is  revealed  a  volume,  prompting  to  high  thought  and 
action,  not  for  the  sake  of  glory,  but  to  advance  our 
selves  in  knowledge,  in  virtue,  in  excellence  of  all 
kinds.  Our  Artist  has  here  given  a  fresh  utterance  to 
that  sentiment  which  is  the  highest  grace  in  the  life  of 
that  great  magistrate,  Lord  Mansfield,  when,  confes 
sing  the  attractions  of  popularity,  he  said,  it  was  that 
which  followed,  not  which  was  followed  after. 

As  we  contemplate  the  life  and  works  of  Allston, 
we  are  inexpressibly  grateful  that  he  lived.  His  ex 
ample  is  one  of  our  most  precious  possessions.  And 
yet,  while  we  rejoice  that  he  has  done  much,  we 
seem  to  hear  a  whisper  that  he  might  have  done 
more.  His  productions  suggest  a  higher  genius  than 
they  fully  display;  and  we  are  sometimes  disposed  to 
praise  the  master  rather  than  his  works.  Like  a  be 
loved  character  in  English  literature,  Sir  James  Mack 
intosh,  he  suddenly  closed  a  career  of  beautiful  but 
fragmentary  labors,  leaving  much  undone  which  all 
had  hoped  he  would  do.  The  great  painting  which 
had  haunted  so  many  years  of  his  life,  and  which  his 
friends  and  country  awaited  with  anxious  interest, 
remained  unfinished  at  last.  His  Virgilian  sensibili 
ty  and  modesty  would  doubtless  have  ordered  its  de 
struction,  had  death  arrested  him  less  suddenly.* 

*  The  accomplished  artist,  Mr.  West,  now  in  Boston,  has  kindly  fur- 


49 


Titian  died,  leaving,  like  Allston,  an  important  picture, 
on  which  his  hand  had  been  busy  down  to  the  time 
of  his  death,  still  incomplete.  A  pious  and  .  dis 
tinguished  pupil,  the  younger  Palma,  took  up  the  la- 

nished  me  with  the  following  sketch  of  his  impressions  of  this  picture  :  — 
"  For  many  years,  I  had  heard  of  the  picture,  in  progress,  of  Bel- 
shazzar^s  Feast,  by  Washington  Allston.  Upon  his  death,  I  was  informed 
of  the  defaced  condition  in  which  he  had  left  it,  and,  finally,  of  its  resto 
ration  to  its  present  state  ;  and  among  the  many  descriptions  given  me  of 
it,  as  it  is,  there  were  none  very  flattering  to  his  reputation.  My  surprise 
and  pleasure  were  the  greater,  upon  seeing  it,  —  as  it  is,  certainly,  as  far 
as  it  is  wrought,  one  of  the  finest  pictures  I  ever  saw.  I  have  looked  at 
it  again  and  again,  and  feel  confident  I  am  not  mistaken  in  rating  it  as  I 
do.  There  is  much  more  of  the  picture  finished  than  strikes  one  at  first 
view ;  the  few  unfinished  figures  in  the  foreground  veiling,  as  it  were,  the 
excellence,  beauty,  and  amount  of  that  which  is  completed.  The  whole 
of  the  background  and  middle  ground,  or  the  figures  next  in  size  and  ad 
junct  to  the  principal  figures,  appear  to  be  finished,  and  that  with  a  care 
and  completeness  that  are  surprising.  His  concern  was  everywhere  upon 
the  picture,  and  the  detail  which  pervades  the  whole  surface  of  the  can 
vass  makes  every  inch  of  it  teem  with  the  subject;  and  this  too,  strange 
to  say,  without  the  least  detriment  to  that  required  breadth  that  no  fine 
picture  must  want.  '  In  the  same  hour  came  forth  fingers  of  a  man's 
hand  and  wrote  over  against  the  candlestick  upon  the  plaster  of  the 
wall  of  the  king's  palace,'  &c.  This  is  the  time  chosen  for  the  picture. 
Of  the  figures  in  the  foreground,  the  queen  is  the  only  one  that  is  fin 
ished,  or  very  nearly  so.  Her  attitude,  her  intently  fixed  look  of  awe  and 
grief  at  the  writing  on  the  wall,  her  convulsive  gripe  of  the  hand  of  an 
attendant  immediately  behind  her,  while  she  hears  the  prophet's  doom, 
the  expression  in  the  faces  of  the  two  attendants,  is  one  of  the  finest  and 
most  powerful  passages  of  art  I  ever  saw  committed  to  canvass.  It  ex 
hibits  the  drawing  of  Raffael  with  the  coloring  of  Titian.  On  the  right 
hand  of  the  picture,  as  you  stand  before  it,  below  the  unfinished  astrolo 
gers  in  the  foreground,  is  a  group  of  figures,  mostly  in  shadow,  some 
bending  low  in  reverence  of  the  prophet,  —  which  for  color,  drawing,  and 
execution,  altogether,  is  of  unsurpassable  beauty.  The  artist  aimed  to 
make  it  a  perfect  picture  ;  and,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  evidence  already 
adduced,  the  trial  would  have  terminated  very  much  like  a  verdict  in  his 

favor." 

7 


50 


bor  of  his  master,  and,  on  completing  it,  placed  it  in 
the  church  for  which  it  was  destined,  with  this  in 
scription  :  —  "  That  which  Titian  left  unfinished  Pal- 
ma  reverently  completed,  and  dedicated  the  work  to 
God."  Where  is  the  Palma  who  can  complete  what 
our  Titian  has  left  unfinished  ? 

Let  us  now  reverently  approach  the  grave  of  the 
brother  whom,  in  order  of  time,  we  were  called  to 
mourn  first.  WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING,  THE  PHI 
LANTHROPIST,  died  in  the  month  of  October,  1842, 
aged  sixty- two.  It  is  by  an  easy  transition  that  we 
pass  from  Allston  to  C banning.  They  were  friends  and 
connections.  The  monumental  stone  which  marks  the 
last  resting-place  of  the  Philanthropist  was  designed 
by  the  Artist.  In  physical  organization  they  were  not 
unlike,  each  possessing  a  fineness  of  fibre  which  hard 
ly  belongs  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  stock.  There  were  in 
both  the  same  sensibility,  delicacy,  refinement,  and 
truth,  illumined  by  highest  aims ;  and  the  coloring  of 
Allston  finds  a  parallel  in  the  Venetian  richness  of 
the  style  of  Channing. 

I  do  not  speak  of  him  as  the  Divine,  although  his 
labors  might  well  have  earned  that  title  also.  It  is 
probable  that  no  single  mind  in  our  age  has  exerted  a 
greater  influence  over  theological  opinions.  But  I  pass 
these  by,  without  presuming  to  indicate  their  charac 
ter.  It  were  far  better,  on  this  occasion,  to  dwell  on 
those  Christian  labors  which  should  not  fail  to  find 
favor  alike  in  all  churches,  whether  at  Rome,  Geneva, 
Canterbury,  or  Boston. 


51 


His  beneficent  influence  has  been  widely  felt  and 
acknowledged.  His  words  have  been  heard  and  read 
by  thousands,  in  all  conditions  of  life,  and  in  various 
lands,  whose  hearts  have  been  touched  with  gratitude 
towards  the  meek  and  eloquent  upholder  of  divine 
truth.  An  American  traveller,  at  a  small  village  on 
one  of  the  terraces  of  the  Alps,  in  the  Austrian  Tyrol, 
encountered  a  German,  who,  hearing  that  his  com 
panion  was  from  Boston,  inquired  earnestly  after 
Charming,  —  saying,  that  the  difficulty  of  learning  the 
English  language  had  been  adequately  repaid  by  the 
delight  of  his  writings.  A  distinguished  stranger, 
when  about  to  visit  this  country,  was  told  by  a  relative 
not  less  lovely  in  character  than  exalted  in  condition, 
that  she  envied  him  his  journey,  "  for  two  objects  that 
he  would  not  fail  to  see, — Niagara  and  Channing." 
We  have  already  observed,  that  a  critic  of  art  has 
placed  him  in  a  grand  American  triumvirate  with 
Allston  and  Washington.*  More  frequently,  he  has 
been  associated  with 'Washington  and  Franklin ;  but, 
unlike  Washington,  he  had  no  ensigns  of  command ; 
unlike  Franklin,  he  was  never  elevated  to  the  pin 
nacle  of  foreign  office.  It  is  probable  that  since  them 
no  American  has  exerted  an  equal  influence  over  his 
fellow-men.  And  yet,  if  it  be  asked  what  single 
important  measure  he  has  carried  to  a  successful 
close,  I  could  not  answer.  It  is  on  character  that 
he  has  wrought  and  is  still  producing  incalculable 
changes. 

*  Mrs.  Jameson's  Memoirs  and  Sketches. 


From  the  retirement  of  his  study  he  has  spoken  to 
the  nations  and  to  mankind,  in  a  voice  which  has  made 
itself  heard  in  the  most  distant  places,  and  whose  in 
fluence,  pleading  the  cause  of  gentleness,  of  right 
eousness,  and  of  peace,  is  felt  by  thousands  on 
whose  souls  has  never  fallen  either  his  spoken  or 
written  word.  He  is  the  herald  of  a  new  and  greater 
age  than  any  yet  seen  in  the  world's  history,  when 
the  Sword  shall  yield  to  the  Pen,  when  the  Gorgon 
countenance  of  Force,  hardening  all  that  it  looks 
upon,  shall  be  dazzled  into  imbecility  by  the  efful 
gence  of  Christian  Truth.  While  he  lived,  he  was 
ever,  through  good  report  and  evil  report,  the  cham 
pion  of  Humanity.  "  Follow  my  white  plume,"  said 
the  chivalrous  monarch  of  France,  as  he  plunged 
into  the  thickest  of  the  vulgar  fight.  "  Follow  the 
Right,"  more  resplendent  than  plume  or  oriflamme, 
was  the  watchword  of  Channing. 

I  have  called  him  the  Philanthropist,  the  lover  of 
man,  —  the  title  of  highest  honor  on  earth.  "  I  take 
goodness  in  this  sense,"  says  Lord  Bacon,  "  the  affect 
ing  of  the  weal  of  men,  which  is  what  the  Grecians 

call  Philanthropeia This  of  all  virtues  and 

dignities  of  the  mind  is  the  greatest,  being  the  char 
acter  of  the  Deity  ;  and  without  it  man  is  a  busy, 
mischievous,  wretched  thing,  no  better  than  a  kind 
of  vermin."  *  Lord  Bacon  was  right.  Confessing 
the  attractions  of  Scholarship,  awed  by  the  majesty 
of  the  Law,  fascinated  by  the  beauty  of  Art,  our  souls 
bend  with  involuntary  reverence  before  the  angelic 

*  Essays,  Of  Goodness. 


53 


nature  that  seeks  the  good  of  his  fellow-man.  It  is 
through  him  that  God  speaks.  On  him  has  de 
scended  in  especial  measure  his  divine  spirit.  God  is 
love,  and  man  most  nearly  resembles  him  in  his 
diffusive  benevolence.  In  heaven,  we  are  told,  the 
first  place  or  degree  is  given  to  the  angels  of  love, 
who  are  termed  Seraphim  ;  the  second  to  the  angels 
of  light,  who  are  termed  Cherubim. 

It  must  be  confessed  with  sorrow,  that  the  time 
has  not  yet  come,  when  even  his  exalted  labors  of 
benevolence  can  find  equal  acceptance  with  all  men. 
And  now,  as  I  undertake  to  speak  of  them  in  this 
presence,  I  seem  to  tread  on  half-buried  cinders.  I 
shall  tread  fearlessly ;  trusting  to  be  loyal  to  the 
occasion,  to  my  subject,  and  to  myself.  In  the 
language  of  my  own  profession,  I  shall  not  travel 
out  of  the  record ;  but  I  trust  to  be  true  to 
the  record.  It  is  fit  that  his  name  should  be  affec 
tionately  commemorated  here.  He  was  one  of  us. 
He  was  a  son  of  the  University,  and  for  many 
years  connected  with  its  government  as  a  teacher, 
and  as  a  Fellow  of  the  Corporation.  To  him,  more, 
perhaps,  than  to  any  other  person,  is  she  indebted 
for  her  most  distinctive  opinions.  His  name  is  indis- 
solubly  connected  with  hers  ;  — 

"  And  when  thy  ruins  shall  disclaim 
To  be  the  treasure  of  his  name, 
His  name,  that  cannot  fade,  shall  be 
An  everlasting  monument  to  thee."* 

*  Ben  Jonson's  inscription  for  the  "  pious  marble  "  in  honor  of  Dray 
ton. 


54 


I  have  called  him  the  Philanthropist ;  he  might  also 
be  called  the  Moralist,  for  he  was  the  high  ex 
pounder  of  human  duties ;  but  his  exposition  of  duties 
was  no  common  service  in  the  cause  of  humanity. 
His  morality,  etherealized  and  sublimed  by  Christian 
love,  fortified  and  confirmed  by  Christian  righteous 
ness,  was  applied  with  unhesitating  frankness  to  the 
people  and  affairs  of  his  own  country  and  age.  He 
saw  full  well,  that  it  were  vain  to  declare,  in  general 
terms,  the  blessings  of  right  and  the  misery  of 
wrong,  unless  the  special  wrong  was  pointed  out 
which  ought  to  be  eradicated.  A  general  morality 
is  apt  to  be  inefficient.  Tamerlane  and  Napoleon 
might  both  join  in  general  praise  of  peace  and  con 
demnation  of  war,  and  entitle  themselves  to  be  en 
rolled,  with  Alexander  of  Russia,  as  the  members  of 
a  Peace  Society.  And  many  people  satisfy  their 
consciences  by  the  utterance  of  general  truth,  warm 
ed,  perhaps,  by  rhetorical  effort,  without  venturing 
or  caring  to  apply  it  practically  in  life.  This  was 
not  the  case  with  our  Philanthropist.  He  sought  to 
bring  his  morality  to  bear  distinctly  and  pointedly 
upon  the  world.  Nor  was  he  disturbed  by  another 
suggestion,  which  the  moralist  often  encounters,  that 
his  views  were  sound  in  theory,  but  not  practical. 
He  well  knew  that  what  is  unsound  in  theory  must 
be  vicious  in  practice.  He  did  not  hesitate,  there 
fore,  to  fasten  upon  any  wrong  he  discerned,  and 
attach  to  it  a  mark,  which,  like  that  of  Cain,  can 
never  be  wiped  from  its  forehead.  His  Philanthropy 
was  Morality  in  action. 


55 


As  a  Moralist,  he  knew  that  the  highest  happiness 
could  be  reached  only  by  following  the  right ;  and  as 
a  lover  of  man,  he  sought  on  all  occasions  to  inculcate 
this  as  a  supreme  duty.  He  strove  to  impress  upon 
states  and  nations  the  important  truth,  that  they  were 
amenable  to  the  same  moral  law  as  individuals. 
This  proposition,  if  universally  recognized,  would 
open  the  gates  of  a  new  civilization.  It  is  the 
vague  and  imperfect  acceptance  of  it  that  is  the 
source  of  national  sins.  The  principles  of  morality, 
after  they  have  possessed  themselves  of  the  indi 
vidual,  slowly  pervade  the  body  politic;  and  it  is  not 
uncommon  to  listen  to  the  suggestion,  that  the  state 
and  the  individual  are  governed  by  separate  laws  of 
right,  —  that  the  state  may  do  what  an  individual 
may  not  do.  In  combating  this  pernicious  fallacy, 
Channing  did  important  service  to  the  state.  He  has 
helped  to  bring  government  within  the  circle  of  Chris 
tian  duties,  and  has  instructed  the  statesman  that 
there  is  one  unbending  rule  of  Right,  binding  alike  on 
public  and  private  conscience.  This  truth  cannot 
be  too  often  proclaimed.  The  pulpit,  the  press,  the 
school,  the  college,  should  render  it  familiar  to  our 
ears,  and  pour  it  into  our  souls.  Beneficent  nature 
joins  with  the  moralist  in  declaring  the  universality 
of  God's  laws;  the  flowers  of  the  field,  the  rays  of 
the  sun,  the  morning  and  evening  dews,  the  descend 
ing  showers,  the  waves  of  the  sea,  the  breezes  that 
fan  our  cheeks-  and  bear  rich  argosies  from  shore  to 
shore,  the  careering  storm,  all  that  is  on  this  earth,  — 
nay,  more,  the  system  of  which  this  earth  is  a  part, 


56 


and  the  infinitude  of  the  Universe,  in  which  our  sys 
tem  dwindles  to  a  grain  of  sand,  all  declare  one 
prevailing  law,  knowing  no  distinction  of  persons,  of 
numbers,  of  masses,  of  size. 

While  Channing  commended  this  truth,  he  recog 
nized  with  especial  fervor  the  rights  of  men.  He 
saw  in  our  institutions,  as  established  in  1776,  the 
grand  animating  idea  of  Human  Rights,  distinguish 
ing  us  from  other  countries.  It  was  this  idea,  which, 
first  appearing  at  our  nativity  as  a  nation,  shone  on 
the  path  of  our  fathers,  as  the  unaccustomed  star  in 
the  west,  which  twinkled  over  Bethlehem. 

Kindred  to  the  idea  of  Human  Rights  was  that 
other,  which  appears  so  often  in  his  writings  as  to 
seem  to  inspire  his  whole  philanthropy,  the  impor 
tance  of  the  Individual  Man.  No  human  soul  was 
so  abject  in  condition  as  not  to  find  sympathy  and 
reverence  from  him.  He  confessed  his  brother 
hood  with  all  God's  children,  although  separated 
from  them  by  rivers,  mountains,  and  seas ;  although 
a  torrid  sun  had  left  upon  them  an  unchangeable 
Ethiopian  skin.  Filled  by  this  thought,  he  sought 
in  all  that  he  did  to  promote  their  elevation  and  hap 
piness.  He  longed  to  do  good,  to  be  a  spring  of  life 
and  light  to  his  fellow-beings.  "  I  see  nothing  worth 
living  for,"  he  said,  "  but  the  divine  virtue  which  en 
dures  and  surrenders  all  things  for  truth,  duty,  and 
mankind." 

In   the    cause   of    education    and  •  of    temperance 

*  Channing's  Works,  Vol.  II.,  p.  175. 


57 


he  was  an  earnest  laborer.  He  saw  how  essen 
tial  was  knowledge  to  a  people  who  governed  them 
selves,  —  that  without  it  the  right  of  voting  would 
be  a  dangerous  privilege,  and  that  with  it  the  state 
would  be  elevated,  and  the  means  of  happiness  in 
finitely  diffused.  His  vivid  imagination  saw  the  blight 
of  intemperance,  and  exposed  it  in  glowing  colors. 
In  these  causes  he  was  sustained  by  the  kindly  sym 
pathy  of  those  among  whom  he  lived. 

But  there  were  two  other  causes  in  which  his  soul 
more  than  in  any  other  was  engaged,  particularly  at 
the  close  of  his  life,  and  with  which  his  name  will  be 
indissolubly  connected  ;  —  I  mean  the  efforts  for  the 
abolition  of  those  two  mighty  Heathen  INSTITUTIONS, 
Slavery  and  War.  Fain  would  I  pass  these  by,  on 
this  occasion ;  but  not  to  speak  of  them  would  be  to 
present  a  portrait  from  which  the  most  distinctive 
features  had  been  carefully  removed. 

And,  first,  as  to  Slavery.  His  attention  was  par 
ticularly  drawn  to  this  by  his  residence  early  in  life 
in  Virginia,  and  at  a  later  day  for  a  season  in  one  of 
the  West  India  islands.  His  soul  was  moved  by  its 
injustice  and  inhumanity.  He  saw  in  it  an  infraction 
of  God's  great  law  of  Right  and  of  Love,  and  of 
the  Christian  precept,  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  He 
regarded  it  as  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature ;  and 
here  the  Philanthropist  unconsciously  adopted  the  con 
clusions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
speaking  by  the  mouth  of  Mr.  Chief  Justice  Mar 
shall,*  and  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts, 

*  The  Antelope,  10  Wheaton's  Rep.  211. 
8 


58 


at  a  later  day,  speaking  by  the  mouth  of  Mr.  Chief 
Justice  Shaw.* 

With  these  convictions,  his  duty  as  a  Moralist  and 
a  Philanthropist  did  not  admit  of  question.  He  saw 
before  him  a  giant  wrong.  Almost  alone  he  went 
forth  to  the  contest.  On  his  return  from  the  West 
Indies,  he  first  declared  his  views  from  the  pulpit.  At 
a  later  day,  he  published  a  book  entitled  Slavei*y,  the 
most  extensive  treatise  on  any  subject  from  his  pen. 
Other  publications  followed,  down  to  the  close  of  his 
life,  among  which  was  a  prophetic  letter,  addressed 
to  Henry  Clay,  against  the  annexation  of  Texas,  on 
the  ground  that  it  would  entail  upon  the  country  war 
with  Mexico,  and  would  extend  and  fortify  slavery. 
It  is  important  to  mention  that  this  letter,  before  its 
publication,  was  read  to  his  classmate  Story,  who 
listened  to  it  with  admiration  and  assent;  so  that  the 
Jurist  and  the  Philanthropist  here  joined  in  upholding 
benign  truth. 

In  his  defence  of  the  liberty  of  the  African  race, 
he  always  invoked  the  great  considerations  of  justice 
and  humanity.  The  argument  of  economy,  which  is 
deemed  by  some  minds  the  only  one  pertinent  to  the 
subject,  never  presented  itself  to  him.  The  question 
of  profit  and  loss  was  absorbed  in  that  of  right  and 
wrong.  His  maxim  was,  "  Any  thing  but  slavery  ; 
poverty  sooner  than  slavery."  But  while  he  exhibited 
this  institution  in  the  blackest  colors  of  reprobation, 

*  Commonwealth  v.  Aves,  18  Pick.  211,  where  it  is  judicially  de 
clared,  that  "  slavery  is  contrary  to  natural  right,  to  the  principles  of  jus 
tice,  humanity,  and  sound  policy."  This  has  become  a  part  of  the  ju 
risprudence  of  Massachusetts. 


59 


as  inhuman,  unjust,  unchristian,  unworthy  of  an  age 
of  light  and  of  a  republic  professing  freedom,  his 
gentle  soul  found  no  word  of  harshness  for  those 
whom  birth,  education,  and  custom  have  bred  in  its 
support.  He  was  implacable  towards  wrong ;  but 
used  soft  words  towards  wrong-doers.  He  looked 
forward  to  the  day  when  they  too,  encompassed  by  a 
moral  blockade,  invisible  to  the  eye,  but  more  potent 
than  navies,  and  under  the  influence  of  increasing 
Christian  light,  diffused  from  all  the  nations,  shall 
have  the  magnanimity  to  acknowledge  the  wrong, 
and  to  set  their  captives  free. 

At  the  close  of  his  life,  he  urged  with  peculiar 
clearness  and  force  the  duty  —  it  was  of  duties  that 
he  spoke  —  of  the  Northern  States  to  free  themselves 
from  all  support  of  slavery.  To  this  conclusion  he 
was  driven  irresistibly  by  the  ethical  principle,  that 
what  is  wrong  for  an  individual  is  wrong  for  a  state. 
No  son  of  the  Pilgrims  would  hold  a  fellow- man  in 
bondage.  Conscience  forbids  it.  No  son  of  the 
Pilgrims  can  help,  through  his  government,  to  hold  a 
fellow-man  in  bondage.  Conscience  equally  forbids 
it.  We  have  among  us  to-day  a  brother  who,  re 
ducing  to  practice  the  teachings  of  Channing  and 
the  suggestions  of  his  own  conscience,  has  liberated 
the  slaves  which  have  fallen  to  him  by  inheritance.* 

*  Hon.  John  Gorham  Palfrey,  Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts,  received  twenty-two  slaves,  by  inheritance,  on  the  death 
of  his  father,  in  October,  1843.  They  were  on  a  plantation  in  Louis 
iana.  He  lost  no  time  in  taking  the  necessary  steps  for  their  manumis 
sion.  His  petition  to  the  legislature  of  Louisiana  for  permission  to  set 
them  free  within  the  State  was  laid  on  the  table  by  a  unanimous  vote. 


60 


This  act  finds  a  response  of  gratitude  and  admiration 
in  all  our  hearts.  In  asking  the  Free  States  to  dis 
connect  themselves  from  all  support  of  slavery, 
Channing  wished  them  to  do,  as  States,  what  Palfrey 
has  done  as  a  man.  At  the  same  time  he  dwelt 
with  affectionate  care  upon  the  Union.  He  sought 
to  reform,  not  to  destroy;  to  eradicate,  not  to  over 
turn  ;  and  he  cherished  the  Union  as  the  mother  of 
peace,  plenteousness,  and  joy. 

Such  were  some  of  his  labors  in  behalf  of  human 
liberty.  As  the  mind  dwells  upon  them,  it  instinct 
ively  recalls  the  parallel  exertions  of  John  Milton. 
He,  too,  was  a  defender  of  liberty.  His  Defence  of 
the  People  of  England  drew  to  him,  living,  a  wider 
homage  than  his  sublime  epic.  But  Channing's 
labors  were  of  a  higher  order,  more  instinct  with 
Christian  love,  more  truly  worthy  of  renown.  Mil 
ton's  Defensio  pro  populo  Jlnglicano  was  in  behalf  of 
the  political  freedom  of  the  English  people,  supposed 
at  that  time  to  number  about  four  and  a  half  mil 
lions.  It  was  written  after  the  "  bawble  "  of  royalty 
had  been  removed,  and  in  the  confidence  that  his 
cause  was  triumphantly  established  beneath  the  pro 
tecting  genius  of  Cromwell.  Channing's  Defensio  pro 
populo  Jlfricano  was  in  behalf  of  the  personal  freedom 
of  three  millions  of  his  fellow-men,  who  were  held  in 
abject  bondage,  none  of  whom  knew  that  his  eloquent 


Against  many  impediments,  and  at  considerable  cost,  he  persevered  in  his 
determination,  and  by  a  personal  visit  to  the  State  speeded  the  act. 
Eighteen  fellow-men,  who  had  been  slaves,  have  been  established  by  his 
beneficence  in  Massachusetts  and  New  York.  Four  others  have  been 
allowed  to  remain,  as  freemen,  in  Louisiana. 


61 


pen  was  pleading  their  cause.  The  labors  of  Milton 
caused  his  blindness ;  those  of  Channing  exposed  him 
to  the  shafts  of  obloquy  and  calumny.  How  truly 
might  the  Philanthropist  have  exclaimed,  in  the  ex 
alted  words  of  the  Sonnet  to  Cyriac  Skinner,  — 

"  What  supports  me,  dost  thou  ask? 
The  conscience,  friend,  to  have  lost  them  overplied 
In  liberty' 's  defence,  my  noble  task, 
Of  which  all  Europe  rings  from  side  to  side." 

The  same  spirit  of  humanity  and  justice,  which 
animated  him  in  defence  of  liberty,  also  inspired  his 
exertions  for  the  abolition  of  the  barbarous  INSTITU 
TION  of  War.  When  I  call  war  an  institution,  I  mean 
the  legalized,  technical  war,  sanctioned,  explained 
and  defined  by  the  law  of  nations,  as  a  mode  of  de 
termining  questions  of  right.  I  mean  war,  the 
arbitrator,  the  umpire  of  right,  the  Ordeal  by  Bat 
tle,  deliberately  continued  in  this  age  of  Christianity 
and  civilization,  as  the  means  of  justice  between  na 
tions.  Slavery  is  an  institution  sustained  by  our 
private  municipal  law.  War  is  an  institution  sus 
tained  by  the  law  of  nations  and  the  custom  of  man 
kind.  Both  are  relics  of  the  early  ages,  and  have 
their  root  in  violence  and  wrong. 

And  here  the  principle,  already  considered,  that 
nations  and  individuals  are  bound  by  one  and  the 
same  rule  of  right,  applies  with  unmistakable 
force.  Our  civilization  brands  the  Trial  by  Battle, 
by  which  justice  in  the  early  ages  was  determined 
between  individuals,  as  monstrous  and  impious  ;*  and 

*  Montesquieu  calls  it  monstrous.      Esprit  des  Lois,   Liv.  28,  cap. 
20.     An  early  king  of  the  Lombards,  Luitprand,  recognized  its  impiety, 


62 


it  refuses  to  recognize  any  glory  in  the  successful 
combatants.  Christianity  turns  from  these  scenes  of 
strife,  as  abhorrent  to  her  highest  injunctions.  And 
is  it  right  for  nations  to  continue  a  usage,  defined  and 
established  by  a  code  of  laws,  which  is  monstrous  and 
impious  in  individuals  ?  The  conscience  answers, 
No. 

It  will  be  perceived  that  this  view  of  the  character 
of  war  leaves  undisturbed  that  sublime  question  of 
Christian  ethics,  —  existing  only  in  Christian  ethics,  — 
whether  the  asserted  right  of  self-defence  is  con 
sistent  with  the  meekness,  the  longsuffering,  the 
submission  of  Christ.  Channing  thought  it  was. 
It  is  sufficient  that  war,  when  regarded  as  an  in 
stitution,  sanctioned  by  the  law  of  nations  as  a 
judicial  combat,  raises  no  such  question,  involves  no 
such  right.  When,  in  our  age,  two  nations,  after 
mutual  preparations,  continued  perhaps  through  many 
years,  appeal  to  war  and  invoke  the  God  of  battles, 
they  voluntarily  adopt  this  unchristian  umpirage  of 
right ;  nor  can  either  side  strongly  plead  the  over 
ruling  necessity,  on  which  alone  the  right  of  self- 
defence  is  founded.  Self-defence  is  independent  of 
law  ;  it  knows  no  law ;  it  springs  from  the  tempest 
uous  urgency  of  the  moment,  which  brooks  neither 
circumscription  nor  delay.  Define  it,  give  it  laws, 
circumscribe  it  by  a  code,  invest  it  with  form,  re- 
while  he  vindicated  it  on  the  same  ground  on  which  the  institution 
of  war  is  sometimes  maintained.  "  Sed  propter  consuetudinem  gentis 
nostrae  Longobardorum  legem  impiam  vetare  non  possumus."  Muratori, 
Rerum  Italic.  Script.,  Tom.  2,  p.  65. 


63 


fine  it  by  punctilio,  and  it  becomes  the  Duel.  And 
modern  war,  with  its  innumerable  rules,  regulations, 
limitations  and  refinements,  is  the  Duel  of  Nations. 

But  these  nations  are  communities  of  Christian 
brothers.  War  is,  therefore,  a  duel  between  brothers.* 
In  this  light,  its  impiety  finds  apt  illustration  in  the 
Past.  Far  away  in  the  early  period  of  time,  where 
the  uncertain  hues  of  Poetry  blend  with  the  serener 
light  of  History,  our  eyes  discern  the  fatal  contest 
between  those  two  brothers,  Eteocles  and  Polynices. 
No  scene  fills  the  mind  with  deeper  aversion ;  we 
do  not  inquire  which  of  them  was  in  the  right.  The 
soul  says,  in  bitterness  and  sorrow,  both  were  wrong, 
and  refuses  to  discriminate  between  their  degrees  of 
guilt.  A  just  and  enlightened  public  opinion,  hereafter 
regarding  the  feuds  and  wars  of  mankind,  shall  con 
demn  both  sides  as  wrong,  shall  deem  all  wars  as 
fratricidal,  and  shall  see  in  every  battle-field  a  scene 
from  which  to  avert  the  countenance,  as  from  that 
dismal  duel  beneath  the  walls  of  Grecian  Thebes. 

To  hasten  this  condition  of  the  public  mind  Ghan- 
ning  beneficently  labored.  With  a  soul  that  kindled 
at  the  recital  of  every  act  of  magnanimous  virtue,  of 
every  deed  of  self-sacrifice  in  a  righteous  cause,  his 
clear  Christian  judgment  saw  the  mockery  of  what  is 
called  military  glory,  whether  in  ancient  thunder 
bolts  of  war,  or  in  the  career  of  modern  conquest. 
He  saw  that  the  fairest  flowers  cannot  bloom  in  a 

*  "  Plato  civile  bellumesse  putat,  quod  Grsscigerunt  ad  versus  Grsecos. 
At  Christianus  Christiano  proprius  junctus  est,  quam  civis  civi,  quam 
frater  fratri."  —  Erasmi  Epist.,  Lib.  XXII.,  Epist.  16. 


64 


soil  moistened  by  human  blood.  He  saw  that  to 
overcome  evil  by  bullets  and  bayonets  was  less  great 
and  glorious  than  to  overcome  it  by  good.  He 
saw  that  the  courage  of  the  camp  was  inferior  to 
the  Christian  fortitude  of  patience,  resignation,  and 
forgiveness  of  evil,  —  as  the  spirit  which  scourged  and 
crucified  the  Saviour  was  less  divine  than  that  which 
murmured,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do." 

With  fearless  pen  he  arraigned  that  giant  criminal, 
Napoleon  Bonaparte.  Witnesses  came  from  all  his 
fields  of  blood  ;  and  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  the  coast 
of  Palestine,  the  plains  of  Italy,  the  snows  of  Russia, 
the  fields  of  Austria,  Prussia,  of  all  Europe,  sent 
forth  their  uncoffined  hosts  to  bear  testimony  against 
the  glory  of  their  chief,  and  to  call  for  the  abolition 
of  that  institution  in  whose  service  they  miserably 
perished.  Never  before  was  grand  offender  arraigned 
by  such  a  voice,  in  the  name  .of  humanity  and  free 
dom.  The  sentence  of  degradation  which  Channing 
has  passed,  confirmed  as  it  will  be  by  coming  genera 
tions,  shall  darken  the  name  of  the  warrior  more  than 
any  defeat  of  his  arms  or  compelled  abdication  of  his 
power. 

By  these  labors  Channing  has  enrolled  himself 
among  the  benefactors  of  the  world.  He  has  helped 
the  coming  of  that  glad  day,  which  Literature, 
with  generous  speech,  Commerce,  with  white-winged 
ships,  and  Science,  with  fiery  engines  of  speed  and 
magical  net-work  of  human  thought,  are  all  hastening, 
when  the  inimical  distinctions  of  countries  shall  dis- 


65 


appear,  when  the  swollen  nationalities  of  the  earth, 
no  longer  vexed  by  the  passions  of  mankind,  shall 
subside  to  one  broad  level  of  humanity,  "  illimitable 
and  without  bound  " ;  as  the  mountain  waves,  which 
seem  to  peer  into  the  skies,  sink,  when  the  storm  is 
lulled,  to  an  undisturbed  expanse,  wherein  are  mirrored 
the  sun  and  stars  and  all  the  imagery  of  heaven. 

These  causes  Channing  upheld  and  commended 
with  rare  eloquence,  both  of  tongue  and  pen.  From 
lack  of  point,  and  the  firm  divisions  of  a  more  logical 
mind,  his  character  is  not  to  be  seen  in  single  pas 
sages,  sentences,  or  phrases,  but  in  the  continuous 
and  harmonious  treatment  of  his  subject.  And  yet 
everywhere  the  same  spirit  is  discerned.  His  style 
was  not  formal  or  architectural  in  its  shape  or  pro 
portions  ;  but  natural  and  fluent,  like  a  river.  Other 
writers  seem  to  construct,  to  build  their  thoughts  ;  but 
his  are  an  unbroken  rolling  stream.  If  we  should 
seek  a  parallel  for  him  as  a  writer,  we  must  turn  our 
backs  upon  England,  and  repair  with  our  Jurist  to 
France.  Meditating  on  the  high  thoughts  of  Pas 
cal,  the  persuasive  sweetness  of  Fenelon,  the  con 
stant  and  comprehensive  benevolence  of  Castel  St. 
Pierre,  we  may  be  reminded  of  Channing. 

With  few  of  the  physical  attributes  which  belong 
to  the  orator,  he  was  an  orator  of  surpassing  grace. 
His  soul  tabernacled  in  a  body  that  seemed  little 
more  than  a  filament  of  clay.  He  was  small  in  stat 
ure  ;  but  when  he  spoke,  his  person  seemed  to  di 
late  with  the  majesty  of  his  thoughts ;  as  the  Her- 


66 


cules  of  Lysippus,  a  marvel  of  ancient  art,  though 
not  more  than  a  foot  in  height,  revived  in  the  mind 
the  superhuman  strength  which  overcame  the  Ne- 
mean  lion  ;  — 

"  Deus  ille,  Deus  ;  seseque  videndum 
Indulsit,  Lysippe,  tibi,  parvusque  videri 
Sentirique  ingens."  * 

His  voice  was  soft  and  musical,  not  loud  or  full  in 
its  tones ;  and  yet,  like  conscience,  it  made  itself 
heard  in  the  inmost  chambers  of  the  soul.  His  elo 
quence  was  that  of  gentleness  and  persuasion,  pleading 
for  religion,  humanity,  and  justice.  He  did  not  thun 
der  or  lighten.  The  rude  elemental  forces  furnish  no 
proper  image  of  his  power.  His  words  descended, 
like  sunshine,  upon  the  souls  of  his  hearers,  and 
under  their  genial  influence  the  hard  in  heart  were 
softened,  while  the  closely  hugged  mantle  of  preju 
dice  and  error  was  allowed  to  fall  to  the  earth. 

His  eloquence  had  not  the  form  and  fashion  of 
forensic  efforts  or  parliamentary  debates.  It  ascend 
ed  above  these,  into  an  atmosphere  as  yet  unat- 
tempted  in  practical  life.  Whenever  he  spoke  or 
wrote,  it  was  with  the  highest  aims  ;  not  for  display, 
not  to  advance  himself,  not  for  any  selfish  purpose, 
not  in  human  strife,  not  in  any  ignoble  question 
of  dollars  and  cents ;  but  in  the  high  service  of  re 
ligion  and  benevolence,  of  love  of  God  and  man. 
Here,  indeed,  are  the  highest  sources  of  eloquence. 
Eloquence  has  been  called  action ;  but  it  is  not  this 
alone;  it  is  action,  action,  action,  in  noble,  godlike 

*  Statius,  Silv.,  Lib.  IV.,  Eclog.  6. 


67 


causes,  for  the  good  of  all.  It  cannot  be  displayed, 
in  purest  perfection,  in  a  personal  pursuit  of  dishonest 
guardians,  or  a  selfish  strife  for  a  crown ;  not  in  the 
defence  of  a  murderer,  or  in  invectives  hurled  at  a 
conspirator.  These  are  not  the  highest  founts  of  elo 
quence.  The  waters  may  flow  through  meadows 
enamelled  with  flowers,  that  fringe  their  sparkling 
surface ;  but  the  stream  descending  from  the  moun 
tains,  whose  tops  of  dazzling  whiteness  are  hidden  in 
the  heavens,  will  burst  with  fresher  and  more  power 
ful  current  on  its  way  to  the  sea. 

Such  was  our  Philanthropist.  As  he  advanced  in 
life,  his  enthusiasm  seemed  to  brighten,  his  soul  put 
forth  fresh  blossoms  of  hope,  his  mind  opened  to  new 
truths.  Age  brings  experience ;  but,  except  in  some 
few  constitutions  of  rare  felicity,  it  renders  the  mind 
indifferent  to  what  is  new,  particularly  in  moral  truth. 
The  last  months  of  his  life  were  passed  amid  the 
heights  of  Berkshire,  with  a  people  to  whom  may  be 
applied  what  Bentivoglio  said  of  Switzerland,  — 
"  Their  mountains  become  them,  and  they  become 
their  mountains."  It  was  to  them  that  he  volun 
teered,  on  the  1st  of  August,  1842,  to  deliver  an  ad 
dress,  in  commemoration  of  that  great  moral  victory, 
the  peaceful  emancipation  of  their  slaves  in  the  West 
Indies  by  the  British  government.  These  were  the 
last  public  words  from  his  lips.  His  final  benediction, 
ere  he  was  yet  translated,  was  on  the  slave.  His 
spirit,  as  it  took  its  flight,  seemed  to  say,  nay,  it  still 
says,  Remember  the  Slave. 


68 


Thus  have  I  attempted,  humbly  and  affectionately, 
to  hold  before  you  the  images  of  our  departed  brothers, 
while  I  dwelt  on  the  great  causes  in  which  their  lives 
were  made  manifest.  Servants  of  Knowledge,  of  Jus 
tice,  of  Beauty,  of  Love,  they  have  ascended  to  the 
great  Source  of  Knowledge,  Justice,  Beauty,  Love. 
Each  of  our  brothers  is  removed  ;  but  though  dead, 
yet  speaketh,  informing  our  understandings,  strength 
ening  our  sense  of  justice,  refining  our  tastes,  enlarging 
our  sympathies.  The  body  dies ;  but  the  page  of  the 
Scholar,  the  interpretation  of  the  Jurist,  the  creation 
of  the  Artist,  the  beneficence  of  the  Philanthropist, 
cannot  die. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  their  lives  and  characters,  less  in 
grief  for  what  we  have  lost,  than  in  gratitude  for  what 
we  so  long  possessed,  and  still  retain,  in  their  pre 
cious  example.  In  proud  recollection  of  her  departed 
children,  Alma  Mater  might  well  exclaim,  in  those 
touching  words  of  parental  grief,  that  she  would  not 
give  her  dead  sons  for  any  living  sons  in  Christen 
dom.  Pickering,  Story,  Allston,  Channing !  A  grand 
Quaternion !  Each,  in  his  peculiar  sphere,  was  fore 
most  in  his  country.  Each  might  have  said,  what  the 
modesty  of  Demosthenes  did  not  forbid  him  to  boast, 
that  through  him  his  country  had  been  crowned  abroad. 
Their  labors  were  wide  as  the  Commonwealth  of  Let 
ters,  Laws,  Art,  Humanity,  and  have  found  accept 
ance  wherever  these  have  dominion. 

Their  lives,  which  overflow  with  instruction,  teach 
one  great  and  commanding  lesson,  which  speaks  alike 
to  those  of  every  calling  and  pursuit,  — not  to  live  for 


69 


ourselves  alone.  They  lived  for  Knowledge,  Justice, 
Beauty,  Humanity.  Withdrawing  from  the  strifes  of 
the  world,  from  the  allurements  of  office,  and  the  rage 
for  gain,  they  consecrated  themselves  to  the  pursuit  of 
excellence,  and  each,  in  his  own  vocation,  to  beneficent 
labor.  They  were  all  philanthropists ;  for  the  labors 
of  all  have  promoted  the  welfare  and  happiness  of 
mankind. 

In  the  contemplation  of  their  generous,  unselfish 
lives,  we  feel  the  insignificance  of  office  and  wealth, 
which  men  so  hotly  pursue.  What  is  office  ?  and 
what  is  wealth  ?  They  are  the  expressions  and  rep 
resentatives  of  what  is  present  and  fleeting  only,  in 
vesting  their  possessor,  perhaps,  with  a  brief  and  local 
regard.  But  let  this  not  be  exaggerated ;  let  it  not  be 
confounded  with  the  serene  fame  which  is  the  reflec 
tion  of  high  labors  in  great  causes.  The  street  lights, 
within  the  circle  of  their  nightly  scintillation,  seem  to 
outshine  the  distant  stars,  observed  of  men  in  all  lands 
and  times ;  but  gas-lamps  are  not  to  be  mistaken  for 
the  celestial  luminaries.  They  who  live  only  for 
wealth,  and  the  things  of  this  world,  follow  shadows, 
neglecting  the  great  realities  which  are  eternal  on 
earth  and  in  heaven.  After  the  perturbations  of  life, 
all  its  accumulated  possessions  must  be  resigned,  ex 
cept  those  alone  which  have  been  devoted  to  God 
and  mankind.  What  we  do  for  ourselves  perishes 
with  this  mortal  dust ;  what  we  do  for  others  lives  in 
the  grateful  hearts  of  all  who  have  felt  the  benefaction. 
Worms  may  destroy  the  body,  but  they  cannot  con 
sume  such  a  fame.  It  is  fondly  cherished  on  earth, 
and  never  forgotten  in  heaven. 


70 


The  grand  fundamental  law  of  Humanity  is  the 
good  of  the  whole  human  family,  its  happiness,  its 
development,  its  progress.  In  this  cause,  Knowledge, 
Jurisprudence,  Art,  Philanthropy,  all  concur.  They 
are  the  influences,  more  puissant  than  the  sword, 
which 'shall  lead  mankind  from  the  bondage  of  error 
into  that  service  which  is  perfect  ^freedom. 

"  Hse  tibi  erunt  artes,  pacisque  imponere  morem."  * 

Our  departed  brothers  join  in  summoning  you  to  this 
gladsome  obedience.  Their  examples  speak  for  them. 
Go  forth  into  the  many  mansions  of  the  house  of  life : 
scholars  !  store  them  with  learning ;  jurists  !  build 
them  with  justice ;  artists!  adorn  them  with  beauty; 
philanthropists !  let  them  resound  with  love.  Be  ser 
vants  of  truth  and  duty,  each  in  his  vocation.  Be  sin 
cere,  pure  in  heart,  earnest,  enthusiastic.  A  virtuous 
enthusiasm  is  always  self-forgetful  and  noble.  It  is  the 
only  inspiration  now  vouchsafed  to  man.  Like  Picker 
ing,  blend  humility  with  learning.  Like  Story,  ascend 
above  the  present,  in  place  and  time.  Like  Allston, 
regard  fame  only  as  the  eternal  shadow  of  excellence. 
Like  Channing,  bend  in  adoration  before  the  right. 
Cultivate  alike  the  wisdom  of  experience  and  the  wis 
dom  of  hope.  Mindful  of  the  Future,  do  not  neglect 
the  Past ;  awed  by  the  majesty  of  Antiquity,  turn  not 
with  indifference  from  the  Future.  True  wisdom  looks 
to  the  ages  before  us,  as  well  as  behind  us.  Like  the 

*-<Eneis  VI.,  852. — Dryden,  in  his  translation  of  this  passage,  intro 
duces  an  element  which  is  not  in  the  original :  — 

"  The  fettered  slave  set  free, 
These  are  imperial  arts,  and  worthy  thee !" 


71 


Janus  of  the  Capitol,  one  front  thoughtfully  regards 
the  Past,  rich  with  experience,  with  memories,  with 
the  priceless  traditions  of  truth  and  virtue ;  the  other 
is  earnestly  directed  to  the  All  Hail  Hereafter,  richer 
still  with  its  transcendent  hopes  and  unfulfilled  proph 
ecies. 

We  stand  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  age,  which  is 
preparing  to  recognize  new  influences.  The  ancient 
divinities  of  Violence  and  Wrong  are  retreating  to 
their  kindred  darkness.  The  sun  of  our  moral  uni 
verse  is  entering  a  new  ecliptic,  no  longer  deformed 
by  those  images  of  animal  rage,  Cancer,  Taurus,  Leo, 
Sagittarius,  but  beaming  with  the  mild  radiance  of 
those  heavenly  signs,  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity. 

"  There  's  a  fount  about  to  stream. 
There  's  a  light  about  to  beam, 
There  's  a  warmth  about  to  glow, 
There  's  a  flower  about  to  blow  ; 
There  's  a  midnight  blackness  changing 

Into  gray ; 

Men  of  thought,  and  men  of  action, 
Clear  the  way. 

"  Aid  the  dawning,  tongue  and  pen; 
Aid  it,  hopes  of  honest  men  ; 
Aid  it,  paper ;  aid  it,  type  ; 
Aid  it,  for  the  hour  is  ripe, 
And  our  earnest  must  not  slacken 

Into  play ; 

Men  of  thought,  and  men  of  action, 
Clear  the  way."  * 

The  age  of  Chivalry  has  gone.  An  age  of  Human 
ity  has  come.  The  Horse,  which  gave  the  name  to 

*  Voices  from  the  Crowd,  by  Charles  Mackay. 


the  first,  now  yields  to  Man  the  foremost  place.  In 
serving  him,  in  doing  him  good,  in  contributing  to  his 
welfare  and  elevation,  there  are  fields  of  bloodless  tri 
umph,  nobler  far  than  any  in  which  Bayard  or  Du 
Guesclin  ever  conquered.  Here  are  spaces  of  labor 
wide  as  the  world,  lofty  as  heaven.  Let  me  say,  then, 
in  the  benison  which  was  bestowed  upon  the  youthful 
knight,  —  Scholars  !  jurists !  artists  !  philanthropists  ! 
heroes  of  a  Christian  age,  companions  of  a  celes 
tial  knighthood,  "Go  forth,  be  brave,  loyal,  and  suc 
cessful  !  " 

And  may  it  be  our  office  to-day  to  light  a  fresh 
beacon-fire  on  the  venerable  walls  of  Harvard,  sacred 
to  Truth,  to  Christ,  and  the  Church,*  —  to  Truth  Im 
mortal,  to  Christ  the  Comforter,  to  the  Holy  Church 
Universal.  Let  the  flame  spread  from  steeple  to  stee 
ple,  from  hill  to  hill,  from  island  to  island,  from  con 
tinent  to  continent,  till  the  long  lineage  of  fires  shall 
illumine  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  animating  them 
to  the  holy  contests  of  KNOWLEDGE,  JUSTICE,  BEAUTY, 
LOVE. 

*The  legend  on  the  early  seal  of  Harvard  University  was   Veritas. 
The  present  legend  is  Christo  et  Ecclcsia. 


•••a 


